First day of my life
by MaddiesCrazyBrain
Summary: Follow Sadie as she tries to survive into the now dead world. PLEASE R/R
1. First day of my life

Day 1 - September 10, 2012

"OH SHIT!"

Sadie sprung forward from her bed bolting straight up.

Realizing the sun was beaming into her room a lot more then it should be for it being 8:00 am. She looked over at her clock and it was 8:52. She had a class at 9 that she had to be at for a test.

She lunged out of her bed, normally she would wake up, shower, make her bed, put on make up and eat some breakfast along with a nice cup of coffee.

But today she said to hell with that and just grabbed her bags and ran out the door leaving everything behind.

Sadie was not your normal partying college girl. She loved to stay in and read, she always had a book in her hand. not the fiction kind she was always reading about politics, history or anything in that area. She loved to learn and she felt that in her life all she wanted to do was learn about everything.

She's also not much of an athlete but today she sure was running across campus like she was Usain Bolt. Her dark brown hair was a complete mess and it was making it worse when the wind kept blowing it all over her face causing her to slow down a bit before she tripped over something.

Finally she made it to the door to her classroom. she slowly opened the door like she was afraid what was on the other side. She poked her head.

"Ahh Ms. Moore. I was a little worried when you weren't the first one in the room today. I was sure you were abducted by aliens cause I know that had to be the only explanation for you not being in class to take your test today"

The class had to snicker to the professors response.

"Sorry sir, I have no excuse what came over me today"

"That's quite alright Ms. Moore..Now have a seat so we can get this test underway"

The professor looked her over and noticed her face is red and that her breathing is heavy.

"Would you like a cup of water?"  
She nodded yes and he brought her over a glass of water to which she gulped down.

Sadie has always liked Professor Berbatov. He was one of the few nice teachers around. Everybody had loved that guy.

XX

After she had finished her test she let out a huge sigh of relief. She knew this test (much like the others) was a piece of cake, just making sure that she was going to be there on time was the part that made her worry the most.

She handed in her test and smiled at Professor Berbatov and she grabbed her bags and left the classroom.

She glanced up at the clock tower that was on campus and noticed it was almost 11 am. Knowing that her boyfriend was still in class until 1 she decided to enjoy the North Carolina cool breeze on the September day.

Originally from Florida she accepted a college scholarship to Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Her parents both drove her up there and helped her move into her dorm. It was a tearful goodbye. First time she ever, that she had lived away from her parents. She loved them both very much.

Sadie sat down on a nearby bench and pulled out a book from her bag, some boring political book that would bore most.

When she starts reading she goes into her own little world and forgets what's happening around her. She sat there getting carried away with her reading she had forgotten what time it was.

It was 1:30 and her boyfriend Stephen had been out of class for 30 minutes now. She packed up her stuff and walked down to his apartment which was on campus.

XX

Sadie walked down the halls of Stephen's apartment building, passing a few other students on the way. Always with her head down and not making eye contact, she was always that shy girl.

She came up to Stephens door and knocked. Fixing her hair while she waited for him to answer.

"Hey there Beautiful"

She looked up from smoothing at her dress and smiled back at Stephen.

"I need a hug.." She said with a pouty face.

"Everything alright?"

She wrapped both her arms around him. "Now I am"

He let out a small chuckle.

"What happen?"

"Nothing serious, I just woke up late and literally ran across campus so I wouldn't miss my text"

He led her inside and as soon she was in he shut the door behind him and brought her closer to him. Giving her some of the deepest kisses.

"Well then...now I feel much better" She went back to kissing him.

Things started to heat up, She even jumped up into his arms wrapping his legs around his waist. He carried her over to the couch all while still kissing each other.

He gently laid her down on the couch, now on top he started to give her even more deeper kisses. Bringing his hand up her shirt, touching her bare skin. It caused her to shiver.

He pulled his hand out and started to unbutton her shirt, exposing her stomach and bra.

Things were about to get started until Julius came barging into the apartment.

Sadie covered herself up with her shirt as fast as possible before Julius could see anything. But I don't think he really payed attention to what was going on in the room, he ran straight to their bathroom while holding onto his hand.

Stephen looked back at Sadie and saw the same confused look on her face.

"Let me go see if he's okay" He got up and walked over to the bathroom and saw his roommate Julius with his hand under the water faucet washing off what looked like blood from his hand.

"Is that blood?!"

"Yes it fucking is"

"What the hell happened?"

"You know that fucking Venezuelan kid, Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"Well I late for my western civics class so i took a shortcut through the graham building. When out of nowhere he jumps in front of me and starts attacking me fucker even and bit my hand" He told his story with built up anger.

"What the fuck for?"

"I don't know! I didn't stop to ask him!"

Meanwhile Stephen started to laugh.

"Dude it's not fucking funny, it hurts like hell" Stephen started to feel bad so he shut up with the laughing.

"You're right, i'm sorry. So what did you do to him?"

"I kicked his ass is what I did, but the little fucker kept coming back for more"

"Really?" Stephen said with a confused look. "I never took him as the guy to wanna fight let alone to keep coming back for more"

"Yeah me neither, especially when i've only said 2 damn words to him in the 3 years we been at this school"

"Did you ever go to class?"

"No, I came back here to clean this up. Starting to get a headache. Think i'm gonna take a shower and lay down. It's been one crazy fucking day"

"You should probably get that checked out"

"I'll be okay, it already stopped bleeding"

"Okay man, take it easy" He pats Julius on the back and walks back into the living room where Sadie was sitting patiently.

"Everything okay?" Sadie asked.

"Yeah he's fine he just got mugged" He said with a smile.

"How is that funny?"

"It's who attacked him is what's funny" He looked down at her shirt "Awww you buttoned your shirt up?"

"Umm yeah, there was another guy in the room"

"Well if thats the case lets take this back to my room then" He said as he grabs her hands and leads her to his bedroom. Sadie giggles the entire way there.

XX

Few Hours later and after a very steamy sex session the couple had been sleeping. The sun was starting to set and Stephen had his arms wrapped around Sadie in a spooning position.

In the distance there was a banging sound that can be heard. It had woken up Stephen, he looks around in his room trying to adjust his eyes from waking up.

He looked down at Sadie and smiled as he gave her a kiss on the forehead as she was still passed out.

He heard the banging noise again, so he stood up only wearing his boxers. He opened his bedroom door to go find out what the noise was coming from.

He looks down at the end of the hall and see's Julius standing at the front door banging on it. Stephen starts to rub his eyes from sleeping and looks again.

"The hell?" He said as he walked a little closer.

"Baby what's that noise?" Sadie said popping out from the bedroom as she wrapped her arms around a shirtless Stephen.

Her voice was loud enough to where Julius caught their attention. He slowly turns around to face the pair. The duo look him over and his eyes are a bloodshot red and his skin was blue like he was freezing cold.

"Julius you look like shit...are you alright?" Stephen said as he jogged over to him and put his arms around his neck to help him stand.

"Sadie can you get a blanket from the close-ahhh!" Stephen screamed as Julius took a bite out of his shoulder.

He screams in agony and drops to the floor holding onto his shoulder to stop the bleeding.

Sadie screams into her hands as she puts them over her mouth. Julius looks over at Sadie and begins to stumble down the hallway. Shocked she continues to stand there.

As he started to get closer she heard Stephen on the floor yell out "RUN SADIE! GET IN THE ROOM AND SHUT THE DOOR!"

She runs back down the hallway back towards Stephens room, with Julius hot on her trail. She runs into his room and tries to slam the door shut but Julius had just stuck half his body through the doorframe.

She tries to shut the door but he is too strong for her. She looks around the room and notices that Stephen's closet door is wide open, she makes a dash to his closest and closes the door behind as quickly as possible before Julius as the chance to stumble into the room.

She cowers into the corner of the closest crying uncontrollably. Julius hears her crying and starts to claw at the closest door. with every clawwing and banging he does it's bounce to break the door.

She cries harder with every bang. Finally he breaks enough to stick his head through a hole in the door. trying his best to snap at Sadie but she's too far into the closest for him to reach.

But he kept getting closer and closer that she could feel him in her face when all of a sudden she heard a loud slam. She looked up and saw Julius blue face and his head fall back out of the hole and then a loud thud.

She peered into the hole and saw his body on the floor and saw Stephen standing over him with a bat in his hand on the good side of his arm.

Stephen pissed off, slings the bat from behind his shoulder and swings at his body again.

"Mother!" he hits him one more time, This one across the skull. "Fucker!"

He stands over him breathing heavily.

"Look what you fucking made me do!" He screamed at his once best friends motionless body.

Stephen looks over towards the closet and see's Sadie peering out to see what had happened, noticing she's in shock he rushes over while wincing in pain to make sure she is okay.

"Are you alright baby?"

She just nods

"It's okay he can't hurt you anymore"

She looks at Stephens shoulder to see the wound.

"Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks" He Hugs her tight and she start to sob some more.

After awhile he lets go of her. " Come on, lets go to the living room, you don't need to be staring at that" He grabs his cell phone from the ngiht stand as he walks out the door.

"Better call the police" He helps a shocked Sadie towards the living room and guides her towards the couch.

Holding onto his shoulder he dials 911 onto his cell phone. He puts the phone to his ear and afterwhile he looks at his phone with a strange look.

"Weird...it's busy"

**Well there you go guys. the first chapter to my Zombie story. It's just something that's been rattling in my head for awhile and i'd thought i better turn it into a story. i'm just doing this for fun and to entertain. please enjoy and also to REVIEW. Th**anks

- Madison


	2. Chapter 2

Stephen and Sadie were sitting on the couch, Stephen kept calling 911 but every time it was a busy tone.

"Damn, this is starting to sting" He was using his free hand to hold a towel onto his wound that he had gotten from Julius.

"Here, let me take a look" She finally spoke up.

She grabs ahold of the towel and slowly pulls it away from his skin. He winces once he feels the air hit his wound.

"Baby we need to go take care of this"

"We can't just leave him here"

"Try calling campus security"

"Good idea" He went through his phone contacts and found the number and hit send.

He looks over at Sadie and gives him another annoyed look "Nothing"

"Really?"

"Yeah it's so strange" He gets up from the couch and into the bathroom and starts to clean his shoulder. "Your right lets go get this cleaned up better"

"What do we do about him?" Sadie said with a pale look on her face.

Stephen walks over to his bedroom door while Sadie is still in the living room.

"I honestly don't know babe. it still hasn't registered to me on what the hell just happened"

He opens up his door and see's Julius lifeless body laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. He then takes his blanket and bends down to cover him up but takes one last look at his face.

"What happened to you Julius?" He shook his head and then covered up his body.

Stephen walked back into the living room wincing in pain. "He looks like something straight out of a horror movie"

"Lets go to the hospital and get you fixed up. we'll tell them what happened and they'll help us out" She said with a somewhat shocked look on her face. She's starting to wake up a bit more now.

They step out into the hallway and notice it's very quiet, but they don't pay too much attention to it.

Then they turn a corner to head towards the elevator and notice scattered papers all over the place.

They walk slowly down the hall like they are careful not to step on a landmine. Sadie is the first to reach the elevators, she pushes the button for them to open and after a minute of waiting the doors finally open to reveal blood smeared on the floor.

She lets out a small scream and Stephen looks down at the elevator floor to see the blood.

"Okay thats it what the fuck is going on?" He asked himself. "Lets take the stairs"

Thankfully they were only on the second level so it wasn't much. He leads the way to the stairwell while holding onto her hand.

While going down the stairs he started to feel a little dizzy

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a little lightheaded"

He continues to move forward. As they finally get to the lobby floor they look to see a complete train wreck had happened. Papers everywhere, blood smeared on the walls and lights flickering but not a soul in sight.

Sadie latches onto Stephens back as tight as she can as they move slowly towards the front door to lead them to the parking.

They get outside and it looks like a beautiful yet ghost town.

"Where is everybody?" Sadie spoke up.

Stephen started to cough really hard, like he had been an old man who smoked 5 packs a day. He starts to lose his balance and start to fall back but catches himself.

"Baby what's wrong?" She looks at his face and notice his color is not the same.

"I'm fine, lets just get to my car"

His car was parked alongside the sidewalk close by the door. He starts to open the driver door when Sadie stops him

"Don't think so, You're not driving" She said snatching the keys from his hand. He didn't even put up a fight he just coughed and went over to the passenger side.

Sadie got into his Ford F1-50 pickup truck. She had to scoot it a little closer to the wheel so she can reach the pedals.

Stephen laid back in his seat as she drove off. She went in the direction of the hospital but still hadn't got off the back roads. Things were still looking pretty quiet.

That is until she got onto the main road. Cars crashed into other cars or into light posts, fire coming from their engines.

She had to swerve out of the way when a random guy came running up. He slammed his hands up against the passenger side window scaring Stephen awake.

"What the fuck?!" He yelled when he looked over at the man.

"Please you gotta let me in. They're all over the place!"

"Keep driving, keep driving!" Stephen yelled out to Sadie who stepped her foot harder onto the gas pedal.

"Please!" The man yelled at them as they drove off leaving him behind.

"What the hell is going on?" Stephen asked. "Did we miss something?"

Stephen turns on the radio, all seem to be nothing but static until he found one with someone talking.

"Do not approach these things, they are extremely dangerous. I repeat do not attempt to make contact with the creatures" Is what was playing on the radio.

"Creatures?" Sadie breathed out.

"Gotta be some kind of joke" Stephen said.

"Joke? did you not see the pile up that was behind us. not to mention julius?!"

"Calm down Sadie"

"Calm down? Stephen, Julius tried to eat you, then he came after me! Then on our way over here there is a crazy guy covered in blood and cars on 's hard not to calm down right now!" She said as she stomped on the brake pedal causing the truck to stop in the middle of the street.

"Baby I know things are crazy right now, but the best thing to is to keep calm, if we let this get to our heads we're gonna get ourselves killed"

She had both hands on the steering wheel looking straight at the road.

At that moment a creatures comes up to the drivers side window and bites at the glass trying to get to Sadie. She screams as this happens.

Stephen looks at the man, noticing that it's jaw has been removed and had the same bluish skin color as Julius had.

Sadie, instead of driving off decides to get closer to Stephen. She screams even harder when she hears a loud pop and blood and brain matter splashing against the glass.

Still trying to recollect on what just happened both sides of the doors open up and they are pulled out by two men that help them run to safety.

They take them off the road and into the wooded area and as soon as they see the coast is clear they stop and catch their breath.

"You two okay?" Sadie looked over the man that pulled her from the car he was an older man and a big one at that. He was the one who shot that thing that was trying to get at her.

"Pop, this ones been bit" The other one, younger and learning that he was the older mans son

"Aww hell son" The older man said to Stephen.

"I'm fine..it's not that serious"

"Not that serious?...boy have you been watching the damn news?"

"What is going on?" Sadie spoke up. "We have been attacked, bitten-"

"You're bitten also darling?" He said interrupting her.

"No.." She said with a confused look. "What in the hell is going on?"

"I'll tell you everything but first lets get to my cabin, it's just past the creek" He starts to lead the way.

"Wait pop, what about him?" The younger man said motioning towards Stephen.

"He still got time before he turns, i'll take care of him when he does"

"Turns?" Stephen whispered... "What do you mean turns?!"

"Boy keep your voice down..me shooting off the gun was already bad enough but we can't let those things keep following us" With that he walked off leading them the way to his cabin.

Sadie and Stephen look at each other puzzled and walk behind the two men while holding hands.****

A/N

there you go guys another chapter. i know its not really detailed but like i said its just a simple fun story i wanted to do. please review!


	3. Chapter 3

SADIE'S P.O.V

We kept following the man and his son back to his cabin, so he says anyways. On a normal day I would have been blowing the rape whistle but today is far from being normal.

It's not everyday you see someone bite your boyfriend and then come charging after you.

Speaking of boyfriend, I looked over at Stephen, he's not looking so well. He was starting to sweat...although that could be from us walking in the woods. But he's also looking pale.

"You okay baby?...you're not looking so good"

"I'm fine. Just getting exhausted"

He was holding onto his shoulder where Julius had bitten him.

"You said your cabin was just past the creek...we passed the creak what seemed like 30 minutes ago" I could tell Stephen was starting to get irritable. Hell i was too. wouldn't you be after having the day we've had and then being drug through the woods by 2 total strangers with a shotgun?

The heavy set man stopped and look back a Stephen.

"What?" I could hear the annoyance in Stephen's voice.

"We're here"

I looked up ahead and there it was. His cabin, the windows were boarded up like he was ready for a hurricane or something.

We walked inside and it's what you would expect after seeing a redneck like that. Gun racks on the wall and a giant deer head over the fireplace.

"Have a seat and i'll explain everything to you"

We sat down on a dusty love seat couch. Stephen groaned when he leaned back so I offered to help.

"Jason could you get these two some water. Especially the feller he looks exhausted"

"I'm fine" He said sternly.

"You may be now son, but later on you're not gonna be so dandy"

The redneck's son who we found out was named Jason came back with some water and Stephen gulped it down kick.

"Easy there son, we're on short supply" I looked back at the man, he was sitting in a recliner facing us holding onto his gun like he had just married it.

"Now, let me start by introducing myself. I'm Wayne and this here young man is my son Jason and this is our little cabin in the woods" He grabbed his glass of water and took a sip and place it back down "..and you're about to become a zombie" Well he got straight to the point.

" Did you just say zombie?" I looked over at Stephen, I couldn't believe it either but Stephen just laughed.

"You heard right" Wayne said with a straight face. Stephen just kept on laughing I on the other hand kept quiet.

"Quit bullshitting"

"Son, how else would you explain everything that's going on?"

"Nonsense"

"No son it's not nonsense... Let me ask you..how did you get that wound?"

"My roommate bit me"

"And what happened to your roommate?"

"I killed him" I looked over at Stephen and held his hand. you could tell he was a little hurt that he had killed his roommate and best friend.

"But why did he bite you?"

"How the fuck should i know i didn't stop to ask-..." I looked over at him he stopped in the middle of the word ask light he had forgotten something. " Didn't stop to ask..." He looked up at me and then at Wayne.

"Julius...my roommate he said the same thing to me earlier. He got bit and I asked why was he bitten and he said he didn't stop to ask.. he was bitten.."

Stephen looked dazed and I was really getting worried.

"He got bit...went crazy then bit me...I'm next" You could tell something had just hit him.

He looked over at me with the saddest look I have ever seen from him.

"I'm gonna die-" I started to cry.

"Don't say that" Wasn't just tearing up anymore I was choking and sobbing.

"I'm gonna die"

"No baby, no you're not...We can fix this"

"I'm afraid there is not a way sweetie" I heard Wayne speak up but I didn't wanna look away from Stephen.

"The news said that once you're infected there is no coming back"

"The news?" I asked.

"It's all over television...you haven't been watching the news?" Wayne asked shockingly.

We both shook our heads no.

"Well here i'll let the television do all the talking then" He pulled over a small old school tv that he had on a stand with wheels. He pressed a few buttons and had it on the local news.

We watch as some reporter was at a desk explaining what was going on.

" - Now confirmed that one bite from an infected will also cause the victim to turn into said infected creature. Stay away from these things as they are dangerous. Reports coming in from all over United States as well as numerous countries with the same information. Please stay inside and and barricade yourselves. Do not make contact with anyone"

"That part I clearly ignored" Wayne said interrupting the broadcast.

" Listed below are quarantined post's in the surrounding area. If you are close be safe to get there and if not, stay inside and help will come"

I watched the bottom of the quarantined area's while Stephen got up and looked around.

"Wake forest Football stadium" I saw the familiar name pop up and started to laugh. "We just came from there"

I looked over at Stephen and he had put his good arm on the fireplace mantle and rested his head on them while looking down at the ground.

I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around him and sobbed. We both knew what was coming.

While I was hugging him he started coughing...coughing hard. so hard that he got down on his knees and threw up on the floor.

"He hasn't got much time left" Wayne uttered.

"I'm fine" I looked back down at Stephen who coughed the that.

"It's best you say your farewell now"

"What?! NO!" I Screamed at the top of my lungs and started to cry again. It's that kinda cry where nothing comes out.

"No i'm sorry, I was nice enough to let you stay alive this long but now you're close to endangering us all." Wayne said sternly and he grabbed Stephen by the arms and helped him up to his feet.

I pleaded with him not to do this and grabbed ahold of him trying to do anything to stop him.

"Jason get her please"

I felt Jason grabbing onto me and holding me back as i kicked and screamed to get away from his grip. I saw Wayne behind Stephen with the gun making Stephen lead the way to outside.

"I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU STEPHEN!" I Screamed at the top of my lungs as I saw him halfway out the door.

"Love you to Sadie" I heard him, but you can tell he struggled to say it.

I was left sobbing on the floor with Jason holding onto me...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stephen was staggering through the woods with Wayne right behind him with the gun pointed straight at the back of his skull.

"Why are you doing this?" Stephen said with a hoarse sounding throat.

"To protect my son and myself"

"But why can't you just let me go...let me go far away"

"And risk you infecting some other poor soul...No sir, I cannot live with myself knowing I helped you turn more humans into those blood thirsty sons a bitches"

"Now lets keep moving forward. I don't want to shoot the gun to close to the cabin and attract their attention" Wayne said nudging the gun into his back.

They walked for about 20 more minutes until Wayne was satisfied with the distance it was from away with the house.

"Alright this is far enough"

Stephen stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to face the barrel of the gun.

"Promise me she won't get hurt"

Wayne lowered his gun for a bit and looked at the young man and can see the emotion in his eyes.

"Whatever happens to me just promise you'll go back to the cabin and protect her, she's a smart beautiful girl with so much to live for...Can you promise me that" He said every now and then with some serious coughing.

"You have my word. I promise nothing will harm her-" Wayne never got to finish his sentence because he was attacked by one of the creatures.

Stephen looked over at Wayne on the ground being ravaged, screaming for help. He tried his best to crawl over to gun to help but gave out right before he was able to grab ahold of it...

Wayne is now silent and the last thing that is seen is the thing munching on Waynes neck and Stephen's dead body laying on the ground with his arm reached out for the gun...


	4. Chapter 4

A/N Okay for now on this story will be in Sadie's P.O.V but if you see the italics then it wont be. That is all. Please enjoy

XXXX

I stood by the window for what felt like hours, peering through a crack of the boarded up window to look outside waiting for Wayne to come back. During the 2 hour wait i've seen 1 Zombie walk by, I was starting to get nervous. wondering if something had gone wrong.

I looked over to Jason who was sitting on the couch watching the news, he was on the edge biting on his finger nails...you could tell he was nervous.

I hadn't talked to him any when Stephen was forced out of the cabin by Wayne with a gun pointed at him.

Jason kept teling me over and over everything was gonna be alright and kept apologizing to what happened to Stephen but i just kept quiet.

"Something went wrong.." Time for me to break the silence.

Jason looked away from the TV I knew it and he knew it.

"We gotta go out there and see if they are okay"

"No we are staying put...he'll be back"

"It's been 2 hours" I fought back.

"Why are you so eager to go out there...you know your boyfriend is dead by now"

Never in my life had I ever slapped someone as hard as I slapped him that very moment for saying that. His face had left an imprint of my hand.

" You take that back!" My tears from before had already dried up but now they were coming back again.

Then look on his face could tell he had regretted saying that.

"I'm sorry... I was out of line" He looked down at the floor and then back up at me again.

"But it's true, I'm sorry to tell you that but he's gone"

I started to cry harder, Stephen's condition was worse when he was leaving, he barely was able to stand and the news did say that he was basically done for. Deep down i just didn't want to believe it.

I sat back down on the couch and put my head in my hands and sobbed for a little bit more. Jason was running a hand through his hair.

And then there was a sound at the door. Something was walking up onto the porch, you could hear the wood creaking. I started to get up.

"Stay there" Jason said as he grabbed his hunting rifle.

He looked through the peep hole on the door.

"What is it?" I asked.

He whipped his head back around towards me and put his finger to his mouth "Shhhh"

He looked back into the peephole and saw a figure stumble around. He backed away from it and turned off the little light that we had.

"It's one of the dead" He said whispering to me so low that i could barely even hear him.

"We should be fine if we just keep quiet...My dad will be back soon"

"Why don't you shoot him...like the news said too" I whispered back.

"If I fire my gun it'll attract more of them"

That made sense, that's the last thing we need. We stood away from the door in the dark and kept quiet but the dead man that was standing on the other side seemed like he didn't wanna go.

It was making some snarling sounds, like it was telling us.. hey you whatever is inside i'm gonna eat ya..

After he had finished with the snarling sounds it sounded like another creature had joined him. We weren't to sure until we heard different sounds of snarling and hissing.

Jason and I looked at eachother and I saw him grip onto his rifle even tighter. He slowly tiptoed over to the door, careful not to make a sound.

He peered was standing at the door and was moving his head closer to look through the peephole when one of them bang hard on the door.

I watched as Jason jumped away.

I guess one of them had heard the sound of Jason jumping back because after that they were making such a racket and kept pounding on the door.

The door kept moving with every thud. It was only a matter of minutes before they broke through. They kept on hissing.

Jason looked over at me.

"Well...I guess they know we're here" He said as he put the rifle up and started to aim at the door.

"What are you crazy?"

He started to move closer to the door when it started to crack.

Oh shit I started to freak out. and then another thud came and an arm came through and then you could see another arm squeeze into the small hole.

Jason pulled the trigger and shot at one of the creatures but had missed.

That seemed to make them angrier, they banging on the door harder until their top half was finally inside and we were able to see their faces.

Both Jason and I were shocked to see what we saw. Jason lowered his gun down

"Dad?" His face was looked as if it was gonna explode with tears.

But I looked back at the door and i wasn't far behind him.

"Stephen?" He came back...not as himself but whatever he turned into had come back.

They both were ripping the door apart and were seconds away from stepping inside. I snapped out of my thoughts and ran up to Jason

"Come on, we gotta get out of here!" I yelled as I grabbed onto his arm and ran into the kitchen towards the back door.

I grabbed the doorknob and turn it as Jason shot at Stephen but missed. We ran out the door and out into the backyard.

Jason turned back around and shot at both of those things as they made their way to the door.

"Come on!" He kept on firing. 'COME ON!"

They came closer and closer towards him but he kept on firing and kept on missing. Daddy didn't teach him how to hunt well as it seems.

"Go on!" He screamed back at me.

I looked at him as he kept on taking shots at them. I turned back and ran into the woods. That's all there was, was woods.

I got deeper into them and heard another gunshot.

_Jason was trying his best to blow them both away but he missed every shot possible. He had wasted all his bullets on them, he looked back and saw Sadie was long gone, he told her to run so they wouldn't chase after her. _

_He threw his gun on the ground and ran in another direction then Sadie had._

_He ran through the woods as fast as he can and kept on running, his face was getting whipped with branches but he didn't care._

_He didn't look back._

_There were no breaks, no time outs. Nothing._

_He looked up ahead and noticed a clearing hard to tell with it being dark out, He ran towards it and stumbled onto the highway._

_He Stood in the middle of the road and looked both ways...nothing._

_He heard a familiar snarling sound and looked back at the clearing he had just come from, his dad had staggered onto the empty highway._

_Jason ran down the road, his energy level was on empty, gasping for air._

_He noticed a sign hanging over the street and attached to that sign was a ladder, he ran towards it._

_He looked back and noticed his now dead father was a little further back than he thought he was. He reached the ladder and quickly climbed up it, as soon as he reached the top he collapsed and layed on his back gasping for air._

_Jason looked down and saw his dad reach the bottom of the ladder snarling and hissing at Jason who was on top on the ladder._

_He noticed Stephen wasn't in sight. Must have fell behind when they were running in the woods._

_The sounds of his dead father were getting louder and louder._

_Jason looked around and saw more of the dead staggering out onto the highway._

_"They can communicate?" Jason said with a bewildered look on his face._

_They all started to surround the sign with their arms reaching up like they were hopeful to grab him._

_Jason started to laugh when he counted them. There were over 20. He just layed his back against the sign and started to laugh harder out of disbelief. _

I been running for what felt like hours. I stopped to take a breather and looked around. It was dark as hell and I wasn't even sure where the hell I was.

I heard a few branches snapping from the direction I had come from. I looked back to see what it was but it was too dark to see anything.

"Jason?"

I heard it again...

"Jason that you?

Then it got quiet...and the next thing I knew I saw a face lunged at me. Someone had tackled me to the ground, we both fell and rolled on the ground.

We rolled down a not so big hill and fell in the middle of a dirt road. I was laying on my back with whoever or whatever on top of me.

I looked up and saw Stephen's familiar face looking down at my snarling with his mouth wide open.

I screamed in panic as he had me pinned down and his mouth was getting closer to my neck.

Then within a second a bright light beamed onto both of us. It stopped Stephen from getting ready to sink his teeth into my neck. He looked up and started straight at the bright light.

I looked up at Stephen as he was staring at the light and then I heard a loud gunshot and then a small hole right between his eyes.

I screamed as the blood started to flow and his body fell on top of mine. I rolled him over and and stood up and jumped away from his body as I cried.

I heard a gun cock, I quickly looked at the bright light, I had to shield my eyes cause it was so bright.

I saw a figure slowly walk towards me aiming a gun at me.

"Have you been bitten?" He said with the gun still pointed straight at me.

"N-no" I stuttered.

"Are you alone?" He said again.

I looked around for Jason, but he was nowhere in sight.

"Yeah..yeah it's just me"

He lowered his gun down and looked me straight in the eyes.

I looked at his clothes and saw that he was military, I looked behind him and saw more men standing around in uniform with guns.

"I'm Private Mark Russell...What's your name?"

"Sadie...Sadie Moore"

"Well Sadie...You're safe now"


	5. Chapter 5

"Well Sadie, You're safe now" I replayed those words in my head over and over again.

I looked straight in his eyes and sobbed once again, I've lost count on how many times I have cried in the past few hours but it sure was a lot.

The Soldier who said his name was Mark came closer and embraced me, I weeped into his chest.

"You're safe now...Everything's gonna be alright"

I felt safe now, I really did.

He let loose of the hug and held onto the sides of my arms and looked at me.

"Now Sadie, there is a bus right over there" He pointed over at a yellow school bus that was parked behind the military trucks.

"That bus is going to take you to a safe place, where there are other survivors, do you have any family you might think is there?"

I wiped the remaining tears with the sleeve of my shirt.

"No, my parents live in Florida, I was here for school"

"Have you been able to reach them?"

"No I haven't, everything happened so quick" How could I have forgotten my own family. "I don't even know if they are alive"

Thoughts were filling up my head quickly. Are they alive or are they not. Where they surprised about what happened like I was or were they prepared.

"Let's get you on that bus and we'll figure something out when we get back" He led me to the bus and stopped at the door. "Don't worry Sadie, like I said you're safe now"

"Thank you" I said softly and walked up the steps of the school bus. Once i got inside I looked around and noticed a few other people on there, all were families that were embraced with each other.

As I walked further down I saw couples holding hands, another girl crying into who i would assume was her boyfriends shoulders.

Then when i went back further I saw a guy sitting by himself, he had long wavy brown hair and a little stubble of a beard, I couldn't help but notice there was dry blood on his face.

He looked up at me as I was noticing him, he just turned his attention back towards the window and watched as we drove off.

I sat in the seat across from him. I looked down at my shirt and noticed I also had blood all over it...Stephen's blood.

I looked back over at the guy who was by himself, He was around my age, built for damn sure.

"I know you're staring at me" I heard him speak up and I turned my head towards my window.

"You don't have to pretend you weren't...I saw your reflection in the window" Well now I feel like an idiot.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to stare"

He just went back to looking out his window again. We sat in silence the ride back to where ever this safe place was.

The bus ride was another hour or so, we kept following the convoys around the city to find other survivors but I seemed to be the last one.

The part of town had looked familiar as we drove around, we were close to my college campus. The driver pulled into the stadium of our football team.

Now that I remember the news had said this was one of the locations of the safe house to go to.

Since the stadium was in the middle of the city we saw quite of few of the dead walking around and even more laying dead on the ground.

I started to hear loud gunshots and one of the dead fall to the ground. I looked above and on top of the stadium there were soldiers sniping the dead that had gotten close.

The driver pulled up to the gate and waited for it to open, The soldiers up top were picking off any of the stragglers that were around before they opened up the gate.

After the coast was clear the gate had opened and the bus pulled through. We drove down a corridor only for a minute until the bus stopped.

Me and the other members on the bus looked around wondering what to do. The door opened the soldier that shot Stephen stepped onto the bus.

"Alright everybody..Welcome to your new home, when you step off this bus there will be medical examiners to examine each and everyone of you for bites, so please be cooperative"

Everyone stood up and made a line to get off the bus, Me and the strange guy that was sitting across from me stood up at the same time and we were infused together.

I looked up at him as he looked down at me, his long wavy thick brown hair was in his face as he stared at me and walked ahead first.

I stood there and watched as he walked off the bus...


	6. Chapter 6

I was standing in a line that had members of the survivors on our bus and another.

It was a slow pace line that we had to be in to get checks for bite, scratches or any injuries. I been standing in it for about 40 minutes and only one person was taken away because they had a bite mark, I watched as he was forced away by two soldiers as his wife and kids cried for him to stay.

"I think they found another one" I heard the man behind me say.

"Really?" I tried to look ahead of the line to see what was happening.

"Yeah, he looks like he's fighting with them about something"

I looked back and the guy I was talking to was tall with brown hair, had to be in his late 20's, there was a blonde girl standing next to him but she kept quiet the entire time.

"I mean it is hard to tell with the curtain in the way but the outline of his body look like something's up" He continued on.

"Could be explaining what happened to him" I said back.

"Could be...lets hope it is because the last person that got taken away almost had me in tears"

"Tell me about it" It was true, it was devastating to see him taken away from his family like that.

"By the way i'm Brandon and this is my wife Jessica" He said introducing himself. Jessica still kept quiet. "She's still a little shaken up"

"Aren't we all" Blurted out the same guy I sat across from on the bus.

"Yeah...guess we are" I said with that i'm annoyed of you tone of voice. "I'm Sadie" I went back to Brandon.

The line started to move a little faster after a while. There hadn't been anymore people with any bites-Thankfully.

The guy in front of me was next to go, he seemed a bit younger than me. He wasn't on the same bus as me, must have been on another that had arrived.

I watched him go behind the curtain when a nurse came around calling next.  
"Name?" The nurse asked.

"Derek Heinrich" He Replied.

"Date of birth?"

"September 29 1995"

It sounded like she was writing it down. Guess they are keeping track on who is here.

"Now if you can please remove your clothes" The examiner asked.

I heard shuffling noise like he was taking them off.

"Boxers as well" The examiner also said.

"If one of those things had bit me on my balls I don't think i'd be standing here talking to right now" He answered back.

Wow. that made me snicker out loud, pretty sure he was able to hear me.

I heard the examiner sigh out of frustration.

"If you don't cooperate i'll just have to assume you are infected and i'll have the guards put you in a room with ones that are"

"Annnnd taking off my undies" He said.

They continued on with the exam not long after that.

"Next" The nurse came around the curtain and took me back for my examination.

"Name?" The nurse asked while holding a clipboard.

"Sadie Moore"

"Date of birth?"

"August 5th 1990"

She wrote the rest on the clipboard as the examiner was putting on glove.

"If you could please remove your clothes"

I did as he was told, I wasn't fond of getting completely naked for a something I didn't sign up for.

He had me lay out on a table and he checked every inch of my body.

"Alright Sadie, You look good to go" He said after finishing up the exam. "You can put your clothes back on now"

I quickly put them on, I felt awkward as it was.

"One of the nurse here will take you down the hall and onto the field where you will be staying"

"Staying?"

"I'll explain everything on the way" I looked next to me and standing there was another nurse. "If you'll follow me i'll show the way"

I got up and followed her as we went down the hall...well more like a corridor.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that back there, not everybody has been a fan of that"

"Um it's okay...So what's going on?" I asked hoping to finally get answers.

"Well the army took over the stadium, cleared it out and made it into a quarantine"

"No I mean with those things running around biting people"

"Yeahhh about that...we don't know"

"Someone has to know right?"

"At first everyone suspected terrorists dropped some kind of chemical"

"Of course everyone thought that" After 9-11 everything was just about blamed for terrorists.

"Then they blamed Obama"

"What the hell?"

"Yeah, I don't know either but what I do know is that it's happening everywhere and when I mean everywhere I mean everyyyyyyyyywhere"

I was a little shocked, how could so much happened within 24 hours. I mean seriously one second I was snuggled up in bed with Stephen and then all this went down.

"Alright Sadie here we are" We went through a tunnel out stepped onto a football field. it was a closed in dome and there was hundreds of people here.

"I know it's pretty crazy right now but once we get this better under control things will be much smoother" I gave her a look as if it will ever get better. "If you're lucky you'll be able to find a cot to sleep on, but most people just sleep on the ground or even out in the stands"

I looked around and everyone was just scattered around the stadium, some balling their eyes out while others just rested but most were talking about their experiences and what they have learned.

"Thank you-"

"..Sarah...name is Sarah"

"Thank you Sarah"

She nodded at me and walked back down the tunnel back towards the examiners. I walked around the field scoping everyone out. Maybe I was able to find someone I was at school with but unfortunately I didn't recognize anyone.

I sat down on one of the bleacher seats and just overlooked everyone. I looked a fewer rows down and I saw the guy I was sitting across from on the bus.

He had just sat down, rummaged through his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, he lit one up and leaned over with his elbows resting on his knees and had his head down while he rubbed his neck.

I just watched him, he looked so lost, so sad and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

He got up and flicked the cigarette butt and walked away. I wanted to go and talk to him but something told me not to, instead I just watched him walk off...


	7. Chapter 7

It's been 4 days since I came to this stadium and everyday there are more people piling up in it, only thing is that each new bus load is getting lesser and lesser.

Clearly the death toll is rising...unless some are just really good hider's, but i doubt that.

Since there have been so many people staying inside the stadium everyone was taking turns sleeping on the cots but to tell you the truth i've been more comfortable just sleeping in the stands.

I became really close with Brandon and Jessica. More Brandon than Jessica, I still haven't heard a peep out of her and Brandon hasn't told me what happened to them both yet and I don't just wanna ask.

But whatever it was that happened it shocked her to her very core.

I met a few more people while I've stayed here. There was Jay, he was a little bit older maybe around 23, 24. He was this tall black guy with a sleeve of tattoo's. He's been real nice to me.

I've seen Mark (The soldier who found me outside in the dead world) a few times, mostly walking around from time to time. We chat every now and then but not much.

Brandon, Jessica, Jay and I have become our own little gang since we arrived here.

I still see that mystery guy from the bus, still haven't learned his named yet or even talk to him for that matter.

I always see him by himself not once have I seen him talk to anyone. I think about going up to him and just talking to the guy but there is like a force field that keeps me away from him, i'll start to walk towards him and then just end up turning back around.

One day i'll talk to him, until then i'll just continue to let him be the loner he want's to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_Mark Russell was driving his convoy out in the dead world with his fellow soldier and buddy Noah Fisher, They were out doing their daily routine of searching for anymore survivors and finding anything that might be useful like medicine and ammo anything like that._

_They drove around the dead world jamming out on their radio's with the music blaring into the echoing streets of the zombie infested city._

_The dead were pretty scattered around but their were still plenty of them. They just like to show up in the busy parts of the city._

_They been ordered to take out as many of the dead as they can, silently and with the possibility of using ammo, but also been told that if they encounter a herd that they should turn the other way and run as fast as possible._

_A few zombies roaming here and there are nothing but when you find them all together in a group thats when all the trouble starts._

_Mark was driving while Fisher was fiddling with the cd finding the right song to jam out to next._

_Mark turns a sharp turn quickly and stomps his foot down on the brake pedal and quickly as possible causing them to stop abruptly._

_The two men look at each other and then back out in front of them._

_There was a giant roadblock of cars, trucks and well pretty much anything scattered across the road._

_Mark gets out of the convoy while Fisher stays in. He walks in front of the convoy and scans the area, taking off his sunglasses while doing so, hoping to get a better view._

_Fisher opens up his door and stands on between the car and the door resting his arms on both._

_"Guess we gotta take the long way today" Mark yelled back at Fisher who was still at the same spot._

_"Can't we just drive around it somehow?" Fisher asked. He was an impatient man._

_"What and risk us getting trapped in a small space when they start to surround us" At Least someone was thinking._

_"Look around Mark their not anywhere around us" Fisher said with his arms extended out like he was showing the place off._

_"Doesn't matter, they can come out of anywhere" Mark turned back towards the roadblock and looked it over once again and shook his head and turned back towards the convoy. "Nah- where gonna have to go back dow-" _

_He never got to finish that sentence as something had grabbed onto his legs and pulled him to the ground._

_There was a zombie that was hiding underneath one of the wrecked car. It's legs were completely gone from the body._

_It was pulling Mark closer to him snapping as he pulled. Mark screamed out toward Fisher to help him out while he was trying to grab his gun to shot at him._

_Fisher looks over and see's what is happening and runs over to aid his partner. Fisher pulls out his gun but not quick enough as the zombie takes a huge bite out of Marks leg. Fisher pulls the trigger as he looks up and snarls at him. blowing his head away with brain matter splattered onto the car and ground._

_Fisher grabs Mark by the armpits and drags him away from the creature. Mark is screaming in pain as Fisher is trying to put pressure onto the wound._

_While down on the ground applying pressure to his leg they both turn their heads when they hear a loud screech coming from close by._

_Fisher gets up and looks around and see's 8 of the dead trying it's best to quickly come at them to finish them off. _

_"Time to go buddy" Fisher helps up Mark and helps him to the passenger side door of the convoy and gets him inside. Fisher runs over to the driver side and gets in._

_He looks over at his partner watching him scream while there is blood everywhere in the truck._

_He starts up the truck as one of the zombies slam against the window, clawing and biting on the glass trying it's best to get inside._

_He starts up the truck as the rest of the dead have reached the truck and start banging and clawing at it. Each and everyone of them are pounding away at the truck as Fisher brings it alive and backs up away from the wreckage._

_One of th dead was able to hang on as it broke it's hands through the glass reaching in grabbing at Fishers face, he was able to swerve the truck enough to shake the dead off, he drove off while he watched the dead body in his mirror roll on the ground._

_Some of the other dead are still chasing after the truck even after a while knowing it's too far they still are moving towards it._

_After about 10 minutes of driving in silence-well not really silence just the groans and grunts coming from Mark who was sitting in the passenger seat with blood pouring from his leg._

_Fisher looks him over and notices he's not looking so good. He's sweating from head to toe but he keeps on driving as fast as he can._

_"You can't take me back to base" Mark broke the silence while groaning in pain._

_"What are you talking about?" Fisher said while keeping his eyes on the road._

_"I'm gonna turn into one of them" Fisher looked over at him after that. "And my guess is it's going to be soon"_

_"You don't know that! Maybe the doc can help" He was not about to give up on his friend._

_"You know once you're bitten you're done"_

_"What are you trying to say" Fisher replied while looking at both the road and Mark._

_"I'm saying...Pull the truck over"_

_"Pull the truck over?" Was he really saying these words._

_"I'm not going back"_

_"I can't just leave you!" _

_"If I go back I put everyone in danger...So pull the damn truck over!" Mark yelled back at him while holding onto his leg to keep the pressure._

_Fisher continues to fly down the road at high speed, he looks over at his partner and can't believe what he is doing but slows down the truck on the side of the road._

_Keeping his eyes straight ahead not wanting to look at Mark._

_Mark opens up his door and steps out onto the ground with his hurt leg. He yelps out as he feels the stinging sensation shoot up to his brain._

_"Don't do this" Fisher pleads out._

_Mark takes out his gun and empties the bullets from his gun. He puts just one bullet back into his gun and hands the rest to Fisher._

_"These are for you, just in case you need them" Mark has his hand extended out but Fisher keeps looking straight at the road so he just rests them on the passenger seat._

_"Mark" Fisher said in a whispering tone._

_"Don't make this harder than it already is" He said trying to complete an entire sentence without screaming in pain._

_"Do me a favor" He continued saying._

_"Anything" _

_"Tell my brother I love him and that i'm sorry" He looked at Mark one last time. "Now go before some start to show up"_

_With that Fisher starts to drive off only this time not keeping his eyes off the rear view mirror watching as he leaves Mark on the side of the road. He continues to watch until he is out of site._

_Back at Mark who is standing on the side of the road. _

_He looks over and finds a nice shady tree and goes and sits underneath it._

_He looks down at his gun and sighs. He raises the gun and aims it right between his eyes._

_His hands start to shake, He is full of nerves and is face is streaming with tears._

_After a while of driving Fisher decides to keep his eyes back on the road and try his best to forget what had just happened and try to get back to base._

_Until he heard the sudden..._

_BOOM!_


	8. Chapter 8

_Slam..._

_Slam!_

_SLAM!_

_Sadie cowered in the back of the closest digging deeper and deeper into the back as a pair of fists came busting through the door._

_She screamed as they came through_

I woke up in a complete daze. I was panicking and I forgot where I was. It took me a few moments for me to look around and catch my bearings.

My breathing finally started to slow down and i'm sure I got my color back.

I lazily sat up from the cot I was sleeping in and drug my feet over so they would be on the ground.

The one time I finally get a wink of sleep and what do you know I have a nightmare. I ran a hand through my hair still a little freaked out but coming to my senses.

I look around the stadium and watch the others hundred of people that are also stuck in this stadium with me. Many of which are also sitting in their cots like they are just getting up.

Although nobody really gets a full nights sleep here all they get is quick power naps.

I'd be amazed as to who actually got 8 hours of sleep. I looked around and some of the survivors are with their families and some are not, but it had me wondering how my parents were doing.

I don't even know if they are dead, alive or dead and alive. I hope they are okay.

I started looking over at the soldiers that were guarding this place and I thought to myself do they really have a grip on things. How long are we gonna last here. A week, two weeks, a month...few years. Who knows.

I forget about them and I slip on my shoes that were sitting neatly next to my cot and I head over to the halls where the long ass line for the bathrooms were.

One for men and one for women. I really had to pee and didn't wanna wait this long but I have no other choice. I lean my shoulder onto the brick wall waiting patiently for my turn.

I started to think about Stephen. God I missed him, I wish I was able to goodbye to him but instead the last time I ever got to see his face was when it was being blown off by Mark.

I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard somebody speak up when they saw the huge line.

"Holy shit! Fuck this line, it'll be faster if I go piss on the 40 yard line"

I let out a small chuckle, I had too. I didn't think people still had a sense of humor after all that had happened. I looked back at the guy that said that and remembered who he was. He was the guy that stood in front of me at the examiners when I got here.

His name was David. No! his name was Derek, thats it Derek was his name. I remember him making some comment then too.

Well Derek, thank you for making me laugh not once but twice during this ordeal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outside on top of the stadium there were a few soldiers standing guard. Two of which were sitting on lawn chairs keeping a lookout for any dead that were coming close by.

I wouldn't really say they were guarding more like slacking . There was Hunter a hick kid that had to be around 18- 19 but the mind of a 15 year old.

And then there was Dwayne, another hick kid the same age as Hunter.

They both were sitting with their guns perched against the chairs chatting away.

"I'm telling you before all this shit went down I was getting it on with some sweet honey" Hunter had to keep repeating himself because no one ever believed him.

"Man that's bullshit, you weren't getting shit!" Dwayne simply stated.

"Fuck you! You're just jealous" Hunter replied with a laugh.

"Jealous?" Hell let me tell you what I was-" He was interrupted by another soldier.

"HEY!"

They both looked over and saw the voice was coming from Thomas Russell. And he looked a tad bit pissed.

"What the hell did I tell you...Keep an eye on the dead below and quit talking about the wet dreams you both had last night!"

Thomas was in his 30's another built guy who joined the army right when he turned 18.

The two kids both got scared by Thomas who was raising his voices at them. He starts to walk away when he turns for just a quick second.

"Oh..and another thing" He says with both of them listening intently.

"Both your girls ain't got shit on the girl I was nailing. She was a fine Puerto Rican chick who was screaming Dios Mio alllllll night long" He said as he walked away laughing.

He left Dwayne and Hunter smiling while he walked towards the doors that leads down inside the stadium.

He walks in and starts to descend down the steps when his radio goes off.

"Thomas Russell, Come in. Over"

He unclips his radio and brings it closer to his mouth to reply back.

"Russell here. Over"

"Lieutenant wants to see you for a moment. Over"

"Copy that. Over" He gave a look of wonder and started to go down the stairs heading towards the Lieutenant's office.


	9. Chapter 9

I Finally got my chance to be in the women's that bathroom. All five stalls were completely booked except one and that one is mine to finally use.

I went and used it and went to go wash my hands when I looked in the mirror. The first night I came here I did the very same thing but I had blood all over my face, Stephen's blood.

I remember washing it off and crying while doing it. I know this may sound crazy but I cried harder when his blood washed away, it felt like that was all I had left of him and it just went down the drain.

My thoughts were snapped when another girl came out of the stall and used the sink next to me. I splashed some water on my face and walked out the bathroom letting another female use their turn.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_Thomas Russell was walking down the corridors of the football stadium on his way to the Lieutenant's office._

_And when I say office I mean the commentators box that overlooks the field._

_He comes up to the door of the lieutenants make shift office. There was a soldier guarding the door with his gun slung over his shoulder by the strap._

_The soldier knocks on the door and hears the scruffy voice of the Lieutenant saying to come in. He opens the door for Thomas and he walks right in._

_Thomas walks in and notices fisher standing next to a desk with his hands behind his back and sitting in that desk is their commander, a semi overweight man with grey hair...well what's left of it anyways._

_"Ah, Private Russel. I been expecting you, Have a seat" He says motioning one hand to the chair in front of his desk._

_"Yes sir" He takes the seat in front of the desk._

_"I'm sure you know Private Fisher" _

_"Yes sir, of course" Thomas replied. He knew him well actually. He was close with his brother ever since they got stationed at the stadium. That's why this meeting was starting to making him a little nervous._

_"What's this all about?"_

_The Lieutenant gets up from his chair and walks past Fisher and closer towards Thomas. Standing in front of him and leaning back on his desk while placing a hand on his shoulder._

_"Son, there is no easy way for me to say this" The older Russell was starting to tense up._

_"Fisher and your brother Mark were out doing their rounds today and...well they came across some trouble"_

_"Is Mark alright?" He said switching his gaze back and forth between the both of them._

_"They were under attack by a horde"_

_"Is Mark alright!?" He said with his face a little bit redder now._

_"They were heavily outnumbered" He continued on._

_"IS MARK ALRIGHT!?" This time Thomas shouted while standing straight up from his chair._

_The lieutenant gave him a look of sympathy. _

_"No son, he didn't make it... I'm sorry"_

_He held back all his emotions the best he could, he fought back all the tears that were trying to escape from him. _

_"May I be excused sir?" He said trying to fight the urge to cry._

_"Of course son" _

_Russell bends down and picks up his gun and slings it over his shoulder. He walks over to the door, opens it and walks past the soldier that let him in._

_He's Walking down the corridors at a quick pace until he heard his name being yelled out._

_"Russell!" He looks back and see's that it is Fisher running down the halls._

_He catches up to him. "Sorry didn't mean to chase after you like that"_

_"You're alright. What can I do for you?" _

_"I just wanted to tell you i'm sorry about your brother" Russell was putting his head down to the ground._

_"Before he died he wanted me to tell you that he loves you" Russell was starting to get choked up._

_Fisher puts a hand on the older brothers shoulder "Also said he was sorry"_

_Fisher continues to pat Russell's shoulder "I'm Sorry for your loss" _

_After awhile he starts to walk down the corridor, leaving Russell there to himself._

_"Fisher" Russell calls out. He looks back at him._

_"Yeah?"_

_"Where is he?" Russell asks._

_"What?" Fisher said with a confused look._

_"Where is my brother?" This time with a more serious tone._

_"He made me pull over on the side of the road, he wouldn't let me bring him back in his condition"_

_"He's still alive?!" Russell said with a brighter look on his face._

_"Yeah...Well at the time.."_

_"Where did you pull over at?" This time with more excitement maybe now he can go find him and say goodbye._

_"Harper road...next to the bank...why?" Fisher stated and asked._

_With that Russell walked off leaving Fisher without an answer. He knew exactly where is brother was and that's all he needed to know._

_After a while of walking down the halls he came up to where he needed to be. He came to where all the trucks were parked._

_He walks down the line of trucks that are parked and finds two men hosing out one of the inside. Blood was being sprayed out of the interior._

_He watched as the blood and water mixed together as if flowed on the ground. It was the truck Fisher had come back with and the blood was his brothers._

_He turns his direction towards another man, well kid who was sitting at a desk with his feet kicked up on them._

_He was alone so he decided to walk up to him._

_"Solder" Russell must have spooked him cause the kid jumped from his seat. He started to settle back into it when he noticed it was Russell._

_"Yes sir?" Russell looked the kid over and he was just like the others in the army. straight out of high school._

_"I need a truck" He said sternly._

_"You bring your slip?" All soldiers that were sent out into the dead world had signed slips of their permission to go out by their superior officers. _

_"Don't have one" He simply said._

_"Sorry sir, not allowed to give you a truck unless you have a slip"_

_"Listen kid" Russell bends down closer to him so only he can hear him._

_"You see this gun in my holster?" He asked the boy._

_"Yes sir" He said while staring at it._

_"Either give me a key to a truck now or I will take this gun and shoot you between your eyes" _

_The kid was starting to get fidgety._

_"Now I know I won't get very far but I do know for damn sure that you will be taken out...do you wanna be taken out?"_

_"No sir" He said while taking a big gulp._

_"Now how about a key to the truck" He said putting his hand out waiting for a key to be placed in it._

_The kid scrambles through the drawers looking for a key to give to him. He finally finds one and places it into Russells hand._

_"It's the third one on the left"_

_"Thank you soldier" Russell said while walking off towards the truck with a grin on his face._

_Now to find his brother..._


	10. Chapter 10

_Russell was driving down the roads in the dead world._

_It's not something he did often. they usually kept him at the stadium to take out any of the dead that would come close by. They used his great aim to take them out from afar._

_He was driving around and thinking to himself how so much as changed in just a matter of days. It was a complete ghost town in the quieter parts of town but when you hit the city it's not something you would come alive out of._

_It was just yesterday that he returned home from Afghanistan. His brother Mark had just finished boot camp. Mark always followed in his brothers footsteps._

_After their parents died while Mark was still in high school Thomas had taken care of themselves. Course when he went off to Iraq and then later on Afghanistan Mark was already old enough to take care of himself and at that time he had enlisted as well._

_There weren't much survivors left. The buses that rolled out to bring any back to the stadium kept getting smaller and smaller in the amount of survivors. Mark kept telling his brother that it was getting crazier out there._

_He turned onto Harper road knowing exactly where to go. He's not far from where Fisher told him he had dropped him off at._

_He reaches his destination and jumps out of the truck. He scans the area checking to see if the coast was clear and it was._

_He felt the autumn breeze flow through his hair. Damn it felt great out. _

_He looked down at the ground and noticed a trail of blood. Has to be Mark he thought to himself. His eyes follow the trail of blood up towards the tree line and something caught his attention upon the hill._

_There was a body laying face first in the ground. Russell has found his brother. He started to feel a little comfort knowing he found his younger brothers body._

_He starts to jog up the hill anxious to see Mark. He finally reaches him and gets down to his knees next to his brother. All he could see was a massive blood covered man._

_He goes to flip him over and the strange thing was it wasn't Marks dead body. He looked him over and noticed a bullet had been shot right between his eyes._

_He must have had company he thought to himself. Russell becomes even more worried now. Is brother is still out there and could possibly still be alive._

_He then heard a raspy growl coming from deeper inside the trees. He stands up and draws his weapon and goes to inspect where the sound came from._

_He slowly scans the area with his gun aimed ready for anything to jump out. He turns around quickly when he hears a noise behind him._

_He looks and see's his younger brother staggering from behind the tree's and he is now one of the dead walking this earth._

_"Mark?" The older brother says in almost a whisper._

_He lowers his gun and looks him over inspecting every inch of his body. Looking at what he had become. _

_Mark starts to growl and hiss at his at him as he staggers closer._

_Russell starts to raise his gun and aim it at Mark._

_"I'm sorry baby brother" He said right before he pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet pierced right in the middle of his head._

_His body froze and then collapsed to the ground all Russell remembers is hearing a thud as his brother hit the ground._

_He gives himself a moment to break out in tears. He walks over to his brothers now officially dead body and holds his hand._

_He cries just for a few more seconds but quickly wipes away his tears and heads back towards the truck. He doesn't get inside to drive off but instead he goes to the back to grab a shovel and also a tarp that was laying back there._

_He wasn't going to bring his brothers dead body back to base they wouldn't allow him to bring it in. So instead he wrapped Mark up in the tarp and spent a while digging him a grave._

_During that time no dead ever interrupted him as he dug. He felt god had given him just this moment to let him dig his brothers grave._

_When finally finished he said a prayer and a few words and walked back towards his trucks. When he got to the door of his truck he looked back at his brothers grave one last time._

_He drove off back towards the base as the sun started to set..._

_XXXXX_

_Fisher was walking down the halls after the long exhausting day he's had. After numerous reports he had to fill out and speaking with Mark's brother and of course what happened with Mark._

_He was exhausted and it started to show on him. He was heading back to his post when he decided to go down a deserted hallway._

_He looked to make sure nobody was watching or even close by._

_He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a bite mark on his forearm..._

_"Fuck..." Was the only thing he could say..._


	11. Chapter 11

I was sitting on my cot reading a book that they were nice enough to pass around. It seemed like they tried there best to make us feel more comfortable being there. But of course no matter what they do we all still lost a lot in our lives.

Many people lost their fathers, mothers, brothers, sister, nephew, nieces so on and so on.. The list can always keep going.

I'm worried about my family. I still haven't been able to make contact with them. I left my phone back at Stephen's apartment and they didn't have phones here to use so I still have no clue if they made it or not.

But as I was saying I was reading a book when I overheard a guy talking, I recognized the voice from before so I looked over to see and it was that Derek kid that made me laugh before.

I watched him as he was leaving a line that was serving some food, he was holding a bagel and an orange juice as he was trying to get through the crowded area.

I saw him walk away back to his cot was my best guess but I noticed he caught his eyes on a blonde girl around our age.

"Want some company?" I heard him ask the blonde girl.

"Actually I kinda wanna be alone right now" She said sweetly back to him.

"Wow, even at the end of the world i'm being shot down" I laughed. Felt bad for him being shot down but he was just too funny.

"I'm not shooting you down. I just wanna be alone" She started to pull her knees to her chest.

"Well Whenever you decide you want company i'll be over by the 60 yard line" I saw him give a wink at the end.

"Okay now i'm shooting you down" She said as she got up and walked away from him, most likely towards the line for the food.

"Fine, didn't want your skank ass anyways" I heard him say to himself.

I smirked as I watched him walk off. I got up from the cot and decided to walk around a bit. I was starting to go nuts just sitting around waiting.

Waiting for what was the question.

I looked around the stadium for Brandon or Jay hell even Jessica even though she doesn't talk she's still company.

But since she never left Brandon side I knew that if i found her I would find him.

I passed a few people I recognized from seeing them basically everyday but had a hard time finding my friends.

I stood in one spot and did a 360 turn to see if I could see them.

"Looking for someone?" I stopped and looked at the direction where the voice was coming from.

It was that guy from the bus again the one I been wanting to talk to better for some reason never did. He was sitting by the benches with a cigarette in hand.

"Or are you trying to catch your tail?" He said dumping some ash on the ground.

"Very funny" I said still scanning the area.

"If you're looking for the tall guy with the quiet blonde he's over by the bathrooms...If you're looking for the black guy he's in line for food"

I stopped and looked at him weird.

"How do you know who i'm looking for?"

"You been watching me...I been watching you" He said simply.

"I haven't been watching you" I tried to brush it off but he was good.

"Sure you haven't" He said brushing a strand of hair away from his face.

He got up and walked away while still smoking his cigarette...Okay, that was weird. But he was right I have been watching him. Damn he's good.

"Hey girl" I heard Jay say as he came up to me.

He was taking a bite out of his bagel he had gotten from the food line.

"Want some?" He said offering some of his bagel to me as i still watched that guy walk off.

"No i'm good...Do you know that guy?"

Jay looks up ahead.

"You mean the dude's butt you're checking out?" He said jokingly. "I seen him around yeah, haven't talked to him though"

"Oh"

"Why you want his number?" He said laughing.

I playfully smacked him on the shoulder.

XXXXXX

_Fisher was in the room where all the other soldiers were sleeping. He laying down on his cot with the covers over him like he's hiding from everyone._

_He's not feeling well at all, he's sweating and his mouth is dry._

_He hid his bite mark from everyone well. he didn't wanna be like mark and be stranded on the side of the road. _

_Those bastards must of gotten him when they broke through the window and grabbed at him._

_He's startled when the door opens up and Griffin comes into the room. Another soldier who is young and very well built. He takes one glance at Fisher._

_"You look like shit" He said as he places his gun down on his cot._

_He sits down on his cot and notices he doesn't face him or say anything._

_"Listen I know it's hard to see a friend die. I know what you're going through. happened to me in Iraq. But you gotta buck up your a soldier your gotta be prepared for this"_

_Fisher pulls the covers tighter over his body, trying his best to control his body from shaking._

_"Fisher, you okay?" Griffin asked._

_He was starting to feel his body tense up and he was getting really scared. He feel's it, he knows what's about to happen. _

_He rolls over on the cot and looks at Griffin._

_"Take...me...to the...doc" It took him forever to spit out those words but he finally did it._

_"Are you okay?" He asked._

_"Doc..NOW!" He said as he started to cough up blood and then collapse onto the ground below._

_"...Shit" Griffin kneels down on the floor "Fisher...Fisher!" He shook his body every time he called his name...nothing._

_He grabs him and hoists him up on his shoulder and trying his best to keep his balance. He runs out into the hallway to find anyone but no one is around._

_He starts to run down the hall with Fisher still on his shoulders. He runs into the trainers room which is being occupied by the doctor._

_He kicks open the doors and runs inside and scares the doctor who is helping with a civilian who was in the stadium._

_"What's going on?" The doctor shouts out at Griffin._

_"Doc you gotta help?" Griffin pleaded._

_"What happened?" He said as he takes out his stethoscope and places it against his chest._

_The nurse was left with the civilian as the Doc ran over to Fisher to help._

_"First he was all sweaty and shaky and then fell to the floor" _

_The civilian in the room was a little freaked out and the nurse was helping him calm down._

_Griffin looks down at the doc as he's looking for a heartbeat but the doc is giving a strange look. Then he goes to check his pulse on his wrist. He gives another strange look._

_"What?...What's the face for?" Griffin asked._

_The Doc looks back up at him.. "...He's dead"_

_Everyone in the room stops what they are doing and don't know what to say. The nurse helps keep the civilian calm._

_The doctors back was facing Fishers dead body as he was facing Griffin._

_"Dead?" Griffin said while looking down at the floor._

_He starts to raise his head to ask question when he noticed something strange behind the doc._

_"What the hell?" _

_The doc looks at Griffin face and follows his gaze. He turns around and see's Fishers body now sitting upright and he is staring right at him._

_His skin is a purplish color and eyes are bloodshot. Fisher's reanimated body looks to his left and notices the nurse standing next to the patient on the table._

_He lunges on her take a chunk out of her neck, she screams as Griffin goes to grab his gun. realizing he left it back on his cot before Fisher passed out._

_Blood is squrting everywhere from the nurses neck. The civilian jumps back as he is trapped in the corner by the creature. Griffin scans the room for any heavy object to use to bash it's brains out._

_The doctor on the other hand bolts out the door leaving it wide open. The creature then attacks the guy as he bites down on his arm._

_Griffin with no other option decides to tackle the monster hoping to have saved the man but he was already too late as he collapses to the floor screaming in pain. He then faints as he's lost to much blood._

_Griffin is struggling with the dead man rolling around on the floor, he is now on his back with the dead Fisher on top of him. _

_Griffin is holding him by the neck hoping his strength will be enough to keep him away from biting him._

_Kicking and screaming as he tries to get him off of him he does not realize that the nurse had reanimated and scrambled over to the battle between the two._

_She grabs on his leg and takes a bite out of it as if it was a chicken leg._

_Griffin screams out and loses the battle with the dead Fisher and weakens his grip on his neck as he leans down and takes a chunk out of his neck._

_The doctor ran out the door and down the hall pleading for help. He comes to a part of the hall where its splits off, panicking he forgets which one takes him where._

_Looking back he see's a dead Fisher and dead nurse stumble out of the trainers room. they start to stagger down the hall and behind them he see's the dead civilian in toe._

_They all lock eyes on the doctor as he decides to run off further._

_He runs into the middle of the football stadium and see's everyone standing around or laying on their cots thinking they are safe...until that is..._

_"RUN THEY'RE INSIDE!"_


	12. Chapter 12

"RUN THEY'RE INSIDE!"

I heard someone scream that. I tried to look to see where it came from but everyone was starting to panic that they all ran around like they were chickens with their heads cut off.

"What the hell is going on" I asked Jay who was still standing next to me.

"I don't know but we gotta book it" He said as he grabbed onto my hand.

Chaos had ensued. Nobody was staying in one spot.

I glanced around and saw a few people trying to grab their loved ones.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_The dead finally came into the packed field and start to attack any close by. successfully grabbing onto a few. _

_Russell is one of the soldiers on the field trying his best to calm everyone down. but that is not happening._

_He takes out his radio and talks into it._

_"Fields, do you see any?" He asked one of the guards that were in the highrise._

_"Are you serious. There are too many people running around down there. I can't see shit!" He spat back into the radio._

_Russell looks around but everyone is is everywhere and can't find any._

_"I see one!" He heard as his radio went off. "People keep getting in the way, I can't get a shot!"_

_Two soldiers are at the front gate trying to deal with a mob that are wanting to get out of the stadium._

_"Back off!" One of the soldiers screamed out as he pushed one of the men away._

_"Open the doors. Can't you see they got inside!" One random civilian screamed out._

_"If I open the gate more will be inside!" The soldier yelled back._

_The mob start to fight with the soldiers as one of them pulls out their gun and aims it at the crowd_

_"We said back off!"_

_The mob at this point don't even care as they start fighting with the soldiers to open the gate. They actually started to open fire on them even killing a few but the mob still did not care as they continued to fight back._

_One man was able to slip by and reach the gate. He was getting ready to run as fast as he can once he opened it up._

_But instead of the mob running outside a horde of the dead ran inside._

_It is complete and total chaos inside the once safe haven of a stadium._

_XXXXXXX_

Every which way I turned someone was getting attacked. I heard gunshots throughout the stadium and I noticed the front gate was opened and there was a flow of the dead coming inside.

"Get on the bus!" I heard one soldier yell out.

I looked up and saw him shooting at anything that came close to him. Jay was holding onto my hand and we were going towards that soldiers direction who was standing in front of a bus.

I was getting pushed around a lot and before you know it a dead tackled me to the ground. Jay kept running thinking I was still behind him.

I was on the ground rolling around with this dead creature on top of me. I looked up and saw as he was about to take a bite out of my face but a blur went by and someone had tackled him to the ground.

Not sure who it was but they had a tattoo on their forearm. I got up and looked around to see where they went but the crowd was so heavy they fell into it somewhere.

"SADIE!" heard Jay scream out. Thank god he did because I wasn't sure where to go anymore.

I reached up to him and he had found Brandon and Jessica.

"You guys alright?!" I asked them all.

"Yeah lets get to that bus over there!" Jay shouted out to all of us.

We pushed our way through the crowd all holding hands, careful not to lose each other like I almost did a few minutes ago.

It took us awhile but we reached the bus and I passed some soldier standing next to the door shooting his gun at anything that came close.

I walk onto the bus and notice a few other survivors, there wasn't much but i'm sure more would be coming along.

I looked outside the window and saw the soldier that was shooting the undead was getting closer and closer to the bus.

He stepped up on the bus and and was still picking them off one by one. I kept thinking about how great of an aim this guy has.

He goes to close the door when a blonde girl comes running towards the bus, he opens the door and lets her in. I watched her run on the bus and down the aisle so fast that she tripped and fell flat on her stomach.

She looked up and was face to face with a dead creature snarling at her on the other side of the glass on the back of the bus.

I went to help her up and we both scurried away from the back door even though it was closed.

I looked back at the front of the bus to see what that soldier was doing, he was closing the door when I saw him fall to the ground. One of the undead grabbed his legs and pulled him down.

His gun fell to the bottom step, we all watched in terror as he was trying to reach his gun and fight of the dead man at the same time.

I noticed one of the other survivors on our bus came running up the aisle and grabbed onto the soldiers shoulders and was trying to pull him back.

He was an older man around 30's.

I looked at the dead man and he's was once a middle aged bald man trying his best to bite into the soldiers leg.

The man that was helping him was trying his best to pull him up but you could tell the dead man had a run for his number.

Everything was happening so fast that I didn't notice there was another man trying to help pull away the soldier, as he was kicking at it.

Then next thing you know the strange guy I been keeping my eye on appeared out of nowhere. I didn't even see him on the bus when I got on.

He came up between the two men and pointed a gun right at the dead man's skull and pulled the trigger. Brain matter splattered against the glass door.

The older man that was first to help the soldier opened the door and the soldier kicked him down on the ground outside.

The Soldiers picks up his gun and runs over to the drivers seat and brings the bus to life.

Everyone else and myself included except the soldier who was starting to drive the bus in the chaotic stadium were looking at the strange guy who I been so desperate to talk to.

The question on everybody's mind was where the hell did he get that gun?

"Where did you get that gun?" The man who was helping the soldier asked.

"I lifted it off one of the dead soldiers" I heard him say.

"I think maybe you should hand that over"

"You're crazy this ain't leaving my side" " I heard him spit back out and the two men started to stare each other down.

"Yo they surrounding the bus army man. We gotta roll man!" Jay yelled out to the soldier who was at the drivers seat.

Everybody pretty much did a 360 turn and saw them all with their arms stretched out on the glass banging on it.

The soldier tried driving through the crowd. I looked out and couldn't find any more people that were alive. The ones that were must have ran further into the halls of the stadium, but there were hell of a lot of dead bodies on the ground.

The bus sped up and ran over the dead and the dead motionless bodies. He drove through the gate and out into the dead world...amazing how only one bus made it out with only 16 survivors...


	13. Chapter 13

**I think it's just gonna be easier if i use straight up third person view. it gets confusing with the narrative with sadie and i just thought it would have been easier but i'm just gonna go back.**

XXXXXXXX

It's been an hour now since they all piled up in the bus and left the stadium. When they left the stadium it was all full with the dead staggering around and Russell tried his best to wait it out for any more survivors but when the dead started to surround the bus he had no choice but to leave.

Russell was at the wheel driving the big yellow school bus around the streets of the dead world. The sun had just started to rise as he drove through the city.

Every so often they'd pass a staggering zombie that would take notice of the bus and try to catch up with it only to be left behind.

The older man who help Russell earlier from the dead pulling him out of the bus was standing in the front aisle with both hands on each of the seats to keep his balance. He was standing behind Russell.

"Where are we heading?" The man asked.

"Don't know yet" He replied back.

"Is there not another base around here?" He asked another question.

"The closest one is in Iola. but thats a five hour drive" Russell replied back.

They were both talking in a whispering tone.

"Well didn't you guys have some sort of back up plan?"

"Yeah.." He said not keeping his eyes off the road.

"Well what was it?"

"...Get everyone on the bus"

The man was starting to get frustrated with Russell.

"That's it?! You had nothing else at all?"

"Everything happened so fast and we planned as much as we could. You're lucky enough we had the stadium barricaded as fast as we had it with everything that went down in the little time we all had"

The man sits down in one of the seats and lays back and sighs heavily.

His thoughts were snapped when they heard a female yelling from the back of the bus.

"We got a problem back here!"

The man looked at the back of the bus while Russell looked in the mirror while driving. The man runs toward the back of the bus where he meets up with the girl that yelled out. It was the nurse Sarah that was at the examiners office to check everyone that came in.

Shes leaning down in the middle of the aisle giving aid to an older man who was sweating from head to toe.

"What's wrong with him?" The man asked.

"He was starting to groan and I looked over and he looked like he was about to pass out, So I started to take off his jacket and that's when I found this..."

"Found what?"

She rolled up his sleeve and there was a blooded covered arm with a bite mark in it.

"This" She says showing him. "He's gonna change.."

Everyone in the bus is looking at them and they are a little worried. Of course they know what is going on, you can't really keep a secret like that when they are all stuck in a small confined place like a bus.

"Hold on a sec" He says to Sarah. He then runs up to the front of the bus and talks to Russell.

"What's going on back there?" Russell asked while still driving.

"The old man back there has a bite"

"Fuck"

"What do we do?" The man asked.

"We toss him" Russell said simply.

"What? We can't just throw him out while he's still alive" He fought back.

"Would you rather him wait till he changes and have him endanger us all?"

"Give me your gun and i'll put him down"

"Like hell i'm gonna give you your gun" He said while laughing.

"It's okay i'm a cop...well was a cop"

"Hey!" Sarah yelled out.

He looks back and see's the old man shaking.

"He's about to change!" She yelled out again.

"Gun. Now!" He says looking back at Russell.

Russell reaches down to his left and grabs his assault rifle that is sitting by his leg.

Sarah now worried that he is gonna change, she starts to back off and trying to get everyone away from the man.

Sarah yells up to the front of the bus.

Russell and the man look back once again to see the old man now rising to his feet only this time he's not looking very alive.

He walks halfway down the aisle when he hears a whistle behind him. Looking back he sees the gun being thrown in the air by Russell.

He catches it and swings back around to aim it at the dead man. Only to be met with the dead man himself, tackling him to the ground he drops the gun that slid across the front of the bus floor.

Jay comes from the back of the bus and tries to pull the dead man off of him giving him the opportunity to get back up and reach for the gun.

Jay falls back with the zombie as the man runs up and grabs the gun. The zombie gets up and runs to the man the both fall and collide into Russell causing him to jerk the steering wheel and making the bus run up and against the building making a loud screeching noise.

Russell tries his best to get back on the road and drive straight but the Zombie and the man kept struggling it made him tilt the bus over onto it's side.

Everyone in the back screams as the bus fell over onto it's side and slid a few more feet down the road.

Russell is the first one to get his head back together and see's the zombie on the ground looking as if he had gotten dizzy.

Russell grabs his gun that the man dropped on the floor, he looks down at the zombie as he looks back up at him and snarls. Russell points down at him and then BOOM!


	14. Chapter 14

The bus is laying flat on its left side. Everything is still quiet until, Brandon opens up the emergency back door. He gets enough strength to jump over and roll onto the hard ground and the door slams shut behind him. Holding onto his ribs trying to cover the pain, he slowly gets to his feet staggering a few steps.

He goes over and opens the emergency door helping out everyone one by one.

Back inside Jay, Russell and the man we still haven't gotten a name out of are still inside the bus.

Jay starts to stand up but as soon as he puts weight on his leg is yells out in pain

"Fuck!"

"What's wrong?" The man asks.

"It's my leg!" He tries again to put weight on it but just screams out in pain again.

Russell takes his gun and slings the strap onto his shoulders and hops out of the bus at the emergency exit.

Everyone from the bus is huddled outside in a group and most are holding onto their sides our shoulders trying to hold onto the pain they received from the bus tipping over.

Everyone is facing the bus until Jessica finally decides to make the first noise she made since the whole ordeal. She screams out a blood curling scream.

They all turn where she is looking and about 5-7 of the undead and staggering at them at high speed.

"You guys better hurry we got company!" He yells back inside the bus.

Everyone else starts to panic as they run off in a different direction. Leaving only Russell at the end of the bus.

As the group of Zombie's get closer he starts to take them out. taking down two successfully.

Back inside the bus the man is helping up Jay. They walk through the turned bus walking on top of the windows towards the exit.

Russell is still doing his best to take them out but he keeps missing.

"You two better get out of there!"

He turns back to the horde and starts shooting again. He looks back into the bus.

"NOW!"

More and more start to show up. Russell is starting to step back while he is shooting them down.

The rest of the group have run off and are nowhere in site. Seeing that they are getting closer he throws his gun on top of the bus and climbs up there.

He goes over to the edge and points down and starts shooting as some are trying to get to him and some are trying to get inside of the bus.

The man who is keeping Jay up are both walking towards the exit only to see a group of flesh eating dead are trying to get in. They walk back towards the front of the bus towards the windshield.

He is frantically trying to come up with an idea to escape from the death trap they are in. He takes his foot and starts kicking the front window.

Kicking harder each time he connects with the window. On the sixth try he smashes the window out.

Helping Jay to step over the window and they start running. More like hobble as Jay can't do much.

Russell is still on top of the bus shooting down at the mess below he does not know that his fellow survivors had escaped.

As soon as Jay and the man make a safe enough distance away from the bus they turn back and shout at Russell.

Russell stops for just a second and looks back, he does a double take.

"What the?" He runs toward the front of the bus and jumps down running away from the scene.

"How did you guys get out?" He asked once he catches up with the two.

"Busted out the front window" He told him.

"Enough of this chit chat let's get the fuck outta here!" Jay yelled out.

The group of zombies that was once at the bus have now find their new position and are making there way towards them. The three men start to run.

Jay is slowing down the group with his leg and all. Russell every so often turns around and takes down a couple with his gun.

Just so he can give them a little running room.

They run around a corner and stop to catch their breath.

"Where did the others go?" He asks Russell while gasping for air.

"I don't know, they hightailed out of there." Russell replies.

They all hear a gunshot and all three looks towards the direction it came from.

"Thats gotta be them." Russell exclaimed as the only other member from their group that had a gun was the guy with long hair.

"Lets go." Russell says as all three start to run towards where the shot was fired from.

They run around another corner, avoiding any possible trouble to encounter. They come to an opening but nothing is there.

All three look around to see if anything is near.

"I could have sworn this is where the gunshot came from" Russell says as he looks around frantically.

"Where the hell are they?" He yells out.

"Guys up here!" All three look up to Sarah on top of a building looking down at them.

Russell looks over to his right and see's a ladder against the brick wall.

They run over to the ladder and hastily climb up there. Letting Jay go up first then the man and then Russell.

Jay is the first to reach the top of the ladder and immediately falls on the rooftop. He grabs his leg putting pressure onto it. While yelping out in pain of course.

Rodney a 50 year old black man goes over to the young man and helps him up and away from the edge.

The former cop was the next one to reach the roof and he is greeted by a hand reaching over to him.

He looks up and sees Sarah lending a hand to help him up.

"Nice of you to join us" She says as he takes her hand and she helps him over the ledge and onto the roof.

Russell was about to hop over when he heard a scream down below. He looks down to see a man being chased by three dead fuckers.

"Help, don't forget me!" He yells at the top of his lungs.

Russell recognized him from the bus he must of split off from the group.

Hel climbs back down as fast as he can. He gets close to the bottom. The dead are right on his tail.

The man being chased finally reaches the ladder and starts to climb up but he was not fast enough, the dead are pulling on his legs keeping him from going up.

Kicking away as much as possible but to no avail they aren't going anywhere. Russell meets him halfway and holds out his arm to pull him up, the man grabs a hold of Russell's arm and hel starts pulling up but is having difficulty doing so.

The man is still kicking away but one of them grabbed onto his leg and bite down hard on the calf. Everyone on the top of the roof are looking down and watching what is going on.

The man is screaming in pain as the zombie unleashes his jaw from his leg pulling out a chunk of meat from him. The three dead are now completely devouring his bottom half. Everyone on top is speechless.

Russell knows in his heart that he cannot save this man and he cannot bring him to the top of the roof.

So there is only one decision he has to make.

"I'm sorry." He says to the man who looks up at him still screaming in agony.

He then lets go of his arm and lets him fall to the ground.

Russell watches as all three zombies huddle over the man and eat away on his body. He still holds onto the ladder with his arms still stretched out where he was once holding onto the man.


	15. Chapter 15

Russell reaches the top of the ladder and hops over the ledge and onto the roof. He looks at each and everyone, they are just standing there quietly staring him down.

Nobody knows what to do or say to what just happened. He gives them all a big stare and walks away from the group across the roof. The cop runs up to join him.

"Are you okay?" He asks stopping Russell.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" He ask not even looking in his direction.

"A man just died in front of you"

"I'm a soldier, I've seen it happen numerous times. I'm trained for it. Today is no different." He walks away leaving him standing there watching him walk off.

Russell walks over to an overhead window that looks down into the building.

"What's your name?" He calls over the other man.

"Corey..."

"Corey come check this out" He said calling him over.

Corey snaps out of his thoughts and heads over to Russell at the window. He looks down inside.

"It's a warehouse," He looks around a bit more "It's Costco."

"And by the looks of it, an empty Costco" Russell said as they both looked around inside through the window.

"You think it's cleared?" Taking his eyes off the window and back towards Russell.

"Only one way to find out" He said holding up his gun.

XXXXX

Jay is sitting on the floor with his back against the ledge with Sadie by his side trying to comfort him through his pain.

Sarah is walking by and takes notice of Jay holding onto his leg.

"Is everything okay?" she said stopping in her tracks.

"My leg, its fuckin banged up." He said gasping through the pain.

"You weren't bit were you?" She said starting to get a little worried.

"Nah, it happened when the bus tipped."

Sarah bends down to her knees to be at his level. She grabs a hold of his damaged leg.

"Lets see what we are dealing with" She rolls up his pant leg to reveal a small piece of glass sticking out from his leg.

" I think I found the problem." She said quickly.

Jay looks down at his leg to see the small glass sticking from his leg, with smear of blood from the wound. He starts to panic a little

"Ah fuck."

"Don't worry this is nothing." she said looking over his leg.

"It's my leg I'll tell you how it feels." He said snapping at her.

"Stop squirming" She said trying to get a hold of the glass.

"I got a piece of glass in my le-" He never did finish the sentence because Sarah had pulled the glass out of his leg letting small amounts of blood flow from the cut.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" He said yelling at her.

" I told you to stop squirming."

"You could have told you were gonna pull it out.!" Holding onto his leg still snapping at her.  
"It's much funnier this way" She said with a smile.

She takes off her blouse and ties it tight around his leg to stop the bleeding.

"Keep pressure on it you'll be fine."She said towards Sadie she gets up and walks off, leaving Sadie to deal with him.

"Bitch" He muttered as she walked off. Sadie just laughs.

XXXXXXXXXX

Rodney the old black man in his 50's is sneaking around a corner of the roof the building, being careful that no one is following him.

Once he has turned the corner he puts his back up against a wall and takes a glance around to see if anyone is near.

Noticing that no one is near he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a flask. He takes off the cap and sips from it.

"Oh sweet Jesus" He felt as if all the weight off his shoulders was finally lifted.

"Hey" Rodney is startled by the voice. He snaps back into reality and looks over to see Derek standing there. He quickly hides the flask behind his back.

"What you got back there?" Derek asks.

"Nothing" He said simply.

"You got something" Derek kept on pressuring him.

"Alright fine. But don't tell no one." Rodney pulls out the flask from out behind his back.

"May I?" Derek asks.

Rodney looks at his flask and then back at Derek.

"Be my guest." He hands him his flask and Derek takes a sip from it. Shaking his head in approval he hands it back to Rodney

"Carry on". And simply walks off. Rodney watches him leave and takes another sip from his flask.

XXXXXXX

Russell and Corey return to the group. Everyone watches as Russell is about to speak up.

"Okay guys listen up" He makes sure everyone is paying attention to him.

" Corey and I are gonna go inside to see if any of those things are roaming around. I want you all to stay put till we get back"

"And we're are just gonna sit here under the hot sun" Kelsey scoffs (The blonde Derek tried to pick up back at the stadium)

"Yeah I think we would all rather sit inside with the A.C on full blast and zombies nibbling on our necks then sit under the basking sun." Derek being the smart ass that he is.

Kelsey gives him an evil glare.

"I think its best if you give me the gun now." Corey said looking over at the kid with long hair.

"I told you once before, I'm not handing it over" He said back.

The two begin to give each other glares of their own. Both men look as if they wanna go at it right now, that is until Russell steps in.

"We don't have time for this" Saying to both men.

"Come on Corey, the faster we do this the faster we can get everybody inside" Saying the last part directly to Corey.

Russell walks over to the door the leads into the inside of Costco. Shortly thereafter Corey walks away every now and then looking back at the kid.

The young man with the long hair on the other hand never took his eyes of Corey.

They reach the door, Russell is about to turn the handle when he looks back at Corey.

"You ready?"

Corey nods and Russell turns the knob to the door and slowly opens it up. Russell is the first one in and he is in stealth mode.

Corey closes the door behind them as Russell keeps his gun pointed straight in case of anything jumping out.

They quietly walk down the metal steps of the dark stairwell careful not to make any noise.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and they are now entering a hallway that is too dark. They look down the hall and they see three doors.

Slowly they walk to the first door. Corey takes the handle and turns it and opens the door up letting Russell in to sweep the room.

"Clear" He said in a whisper.

He looks the room over and the only thing that there is, is shelves of cleaning supplies. Obviously just a janitors closet.

They leave the room and walk up to the second door, doing the same as the last room . Only this time it is a break room.

Looking the room over they see a vending machine and soda machine. Everything is nice and neat. Everything is quiet until Corey speaks up.

"I think we're gonna have a problem with that kid"

"What?" Russell looks over at Corey wondering what the hell he is talking about.

"The kid with the gun"

"Lets not worry about him right now." Russell walks over towards the door "Come on we got a lot of work to do." Still saying it all in a whisper.

XXXXXX

Back on the roof everyone is still waiting for the two men to come back and hopefully tell them it is clear for them to go inside. So hopefully they don't have to keep running around anymore.

Sadie was sitting with an injured Jay and Brandon and Jessica were sitting with them. Sadie looked over and saw a very young girl sitting by herself. She had to be somewhere from 4- 6 years old.

She gets up and walks over to the little girl that looks as if she is scared out of her mind.

"Hey Sweetie" she says to her in a comforting tone."What's your name?" She asks as she sat down next to her.

"Katie" She said in a cute little voice.

"Well Katie i'm Sadie. It's nice to meet you"

"Was anyone with you back at the football field?"

"My daddy" she said in a sad tone.

"Oh, what happened to him?"

"He was killed." She said simply. But somehow not crying over the fact she knows what happened.

"Oh, I'm sorry sweetie." She takes her into a small hug, not knowing how to take care of the situation.

"That man killed him." Katie takes her little arm and points towards a man to show Sadie who killed her daddy.

Sadie looks up and towards the direction of where she is pointing and she just stares blankly.

She just stared at the man she has briefly talked to in the past couple days. The one she's found so mysterious. He was just standing there with his gun in his hand looking down below the side of the roof and watched as the dead were clawing up at him.

"My daddy was trying to get on the bus to be with me"

Sadie doesn't know what to tell her. She does not know how to tell her that the man that was trying to get on the bus was not really her dad but a creature in the form of her father attacking Russell on the bus.

That was until he stepped in...

"He killed my daddy..."


	16. Chapter 16

_Corey is walking through the crowded train station flipping through his phone contacts. Trying not to get knocked over as he presses send on the cell phone. _

_He brings it up to his ear and listens to the rings waiting for the other end to pick up._

_"Hello" The other end was a voice of a women._

_"Hey" Waiting for an answer from the other end, which never came so he begins again._

_"Robin, it's me, Corey"_

_"Yeah Corey I know your voice." She doesn't seem too excited about him calling._

_"Wow, I can hear the disappointment from here." He says into the phone._

_"What do you want?" She asks sternly._

_"I was wanting to say happy birthday to Holly."_

_"She's taking her nap"_

_"Every time I call shes taking a nap"_

_"Yeah, well"_

_"Put her on the phone"_

_"I told you she's na-" she was soon interrupted._

_"Dammit Robin. I dealt with the fact that you left me. Then I got over the fact that you took my daughter away from me"_

_He sits down in an empty seat. _

_"I know I was never there for you both, but that doesn't mean I don't love you two."_

_"Just cause you said that doesn't mean I'm gonna jump in your arms."_

_"I don't expect you too. I just want you to put our difference aside and let me speak to my daughter"_

_He was waiting for an answer which felt like a lifetime. _

_"Fine" She finally said._

_"Thank you"_

_"Hold on a second let me get her...oh my god!" she screams into the phone._

_"What?" Corey starts to panic._

_"Robin what's going on?!" All he hears is a rustling sound. _  
_"ROBIN?!" It now feels like an eternity._

_"A man just came through the window!" She yells frantically into the phone._

_"Where are you?"_

_"Inside my bedroom!"_

_"Are you with Holly?" He says scared out of his mind._

_"Yes, she's with me" She says holding Holly close to her._

_"Where is the man?"_

_"Downstairs."_

_"Block the door the best you can and stay away from it do you understand."_

_"Yes. Yes."_

_"Stay on the line." Corey looks over and sees a man walking by talking on his cell phone _

_"I'll be just a minute." He says to the man. He takes the cell and speaks into it. _

_"He'll call you back." He dials 911 and after a second realizes it is busy. _

_" ...The hell?"_

_He heard yelling coming from his phone, so he turns his attention back towards it._

_"What's going on Robin?"_

_"He's at the door."_

_"Just keep your voice down and don't make a lot of noise."_

_"I'm scared."_

_"Don't worry. I'm coming"_

_"Come quick."_

_"I'll be there as soon..." There is a loud screech coming from the other end of the station. He looks up to see what it is and is unable to believe it._

XXX

Back inside the dark halls, Corey and Russell reach the end of the hall and come to a door thats says security on it.

Corey puts a hand on the handle and turns it slowly and pushes the door open and Russell runs in and sweeps the room with his gun straight up.

"Clear" He says loud enough for only Corey to hear.

Corey walks in behind him and takes a look around. Taking one glance around the small room he sees only a desk and a set of TV's.

Russell walks over by the desk and scans the top and notices a set of keys laying on the table. He picks it up and stuffs it in his pocket.

"Might come in handy" He says to himself.

Russell looks up at the set of TV's and turns all three of them on one at a time. Letting the screen clear out he looks at all three showing a live feed of inside Costco and everything seems quiet.

"Looks quiet out there." He says looking at the TV's.

Corey is still at the desk and he is rummaging through the drawers finding anything useful. After a few drawers with nothing good inside he finds an old six shooter revolver.

"Found a gun..." He says as he opens up the chamber only to find nothing inside.

"...With no bullets." He looks through the desk to see if there is any ammo in there.

"Obviously not prepared." He declares. Even so he puts the gun in his waistband behind his back.

Russell walks over to a panel on the side of the wall next to the door he opens it up and looks at all the switches. He see the main breaker and switches it on.

Doing so all the lights blast on, filling the once dark halls and rooms light up.

"Let there be lights" He looks over at Corey "Lets go shopping"

Both men walk out of the security room and back into the hallway, walking down to the other end they come to a double door.

Russell is getting ready for anything to pop out.

"You ready?" Corey says to Russell.

Russell cocks his gun and is ready. He in return nods back

"Now I am."

The two men open their respective doors walking out into the main room of Costco. They look around to see everything still intact, nothing out of the ordinary.

Noticing that the place looks empty they look at each other.

They both walk around, up and down through all the aisle and notices there is nothing here. They walk up to the food court and everything seems fine. No tables are turned, nothings a mess.

Corey walks up to the counter and hops over, he reaches the drink machine and takes a cup from the stack of Styrofoam cups and pours water in it from the soda fountain. Once he's done with the drink he takes it away from his mouth and wipes the water from his lips.

"Here" He says as he passes the cup over to Russell.

Russell gulps down the water from the cup and while he is doing that Corey speaks up

"The place looks empty."

"It must have been closed when all this went down" Russell says as he sits the cup down.

"You know... unlimited supply of water, food even electricity...seems like a safe place to hide out" Corey thinks out loud.

"Yeah... its pretty secured. Few openings. Theres even an alarm on the door over there" Russell says pointing at the alarm on the side of the door.

"So if anything comes in we would have a heads up" He continued.

"Looks like we hit the jackpot." Corey says with a smile.

"Lets go get the rest of the group and bring them in." Russell says taking his gun and slinging it over his shoulder.

The two begin to walk back towards where they came from, walking side by side. Corey starts to say something.

"You know I was think-" He never got to finish his sentence because of a pair of hands came from the side of him and pulled him up against a closed gate.

Russell looks next to him and see's Corey being pulled up against the gate, seeing Corey having a difficult time trying to break loose.

Every time Corey pulls away the zombie would slam him up against the gate again.

The zombie trying its best to bite Corey but is not able to get its mouth through the opening to bite down. The gate is keeping it blocked away from him.

The opening only large enough for its arms to squeeze through.

Russell points his gun up trying to get a clear shot but is unable to.

"Move your head!" Russell shouts.

Corey still continues to have a difficult time trying to break free.

"Move your head, I can't get a clear shot!" He shouts out again.

Corey is still unable to break free so Russell decides to do the only thing that seemed reasonable.

He drops his gun to the ground and runs up and bumps full force into Corey and knocking the zombie back up against a table inside the room it is in.

Corey falls to the ground holding onto his stomach holding the pain back. Russell picks up his gun and shoots the zombie, blowing his head off.

The gate is still rattling from when Russell knocked Corey and the zombie back.

Russell is panting from what just happened. He still has his gun pointed down at the motionless zombie lying on the ground.  
"Where the hell did that come from?!" Corey says still on the ground holding onto his stomach.

"Her names Sheila- Sheila Everton." Corey looks up behind him to hear where the voice had come from.

Russell spins around with his gun pointed at the man.

"Who are you?" Russell asks with the gun pointed straight at the man.

**WOOOOHOOOOO made it to the 20,000 word mark. Love writing this story. It may not be the greatest well written story but like i told you before i'm doing this for fun.**

**Please continue reading and enjoying and thanks for all the great reviews!**


	17. Chapter 17

"Who are you?!" Russell asks with his gun pointed straight at the man.

Russell looks over the man, he's gotta be over 60 years old and he's dressed in a security uniform. He has his hands raised in the air.

"I said who are you?!" Russell shouted pointing his gun further towards the man.

"My name is Ross. Ross Montgomery" He says with the gun still pointed at him.

"Please. There's no need to point the gun. I'm completely harmless."

Russell looks him over, still with the gun pointed at him. But after a few seconds he begins to lower his gun to his side. He then takes his eyes off of Ross and walks over towards Corey who is still on the ground holding onto his ribs.

Russell extends one hand out to Corey and lifts him up.

"Are you okay?"

"Never better." You can hear the sarcasm in his voice.

"Are you alone?" Russell asks looking over at Ross.

"Yes. It was just me Sheila and another young man that worked in the loading dock. His name was Kevin" He answered back.

"Was?" Russell gives a look of wonder.

"He was bit and then later on turned. Soon after that he gotten to Sheila over there" He says as he points to Sheila's now dead body on the ground behind them.

"What did you do to Kevin?"

"I did what the news told me to do, So I whacked him across the head with a baseball bat"

"Why didn't you do the same to Sheila?" Russell asks.

"Sheila is a lovely women who never did any harm to anyone. I didn't have the heart to do that to the poor women, so I put her inside the store and closed the gate on her just before she turned"

"But the kid you had no problem taking out?" Corey put his words in.

"Pain in the ass that kid was"

"So you been living here for almost a week by yourself?" Russell asks.

"Yes sir, and your more then welcomed to join me." He says kindly with both arms extended out.

"We have more survivors up on the roof"

"The more the merrier" Ross says with a smile.

"Thanks. By the way I'm Thomas Russell and this is Corey...Corey..." During all this time  
Russell forgot Corey's his last name.

"...Swaim. Corey Swaim" Corey says finishing the introduction for him.

"The pleasure is all mine. I'm happy to see others had survived."

"You two stay put I'll get the rest." Russell says as he walks off towards where they had come from leaving Ross and Corey alone.

Corey looks over at Ross and breaks the silence between them "So Ross. Some fine weather we been having huh." Ross then smiles.

XXXXXXXXX

Back on top of the roof everyone is still waiting for Corey and Russell to come back and hopefully tell them it's clear for them to come down.

Brandon is sitting up against the wall of the ledge of the roof with Jessica sitting between his legs leaning back on his chest, his arms wrapped around her holding her tight.

"It's okay baby we're safe now" He says as he tightens his grip around her.

"...For how long?" She finally spoke as she responds with a bland voice sound in her voice looking straight ahead. He just continues to hold her not giving her an answer.

Russell is running back up the metal steps that lead up to the roof. He reaches the door and quickly burst through it and once he does the sun is beaming in his eyes and the heat is instantly burning him up.

He looks up at the sun and then scans the roof looking for the group while wiping the sweat of his forehead. He catches sight of the group and jogs over towards them.

Before he is able to reach them Sarah is running towards him meeting him halfway.

"Wheres Corey is everything alright?!" Shes says when she catches up to him.

"Relax everything is fine. The place is cleared and locked up tight." He then raises his voice so everyone can hear him.

"Everyone listen up!" Once all eyes were on him he spoke back up. "Corey and I looked around and we believe it's safe"

"Did you find any of them in there?" Brandon spoke up.

"Just one"

Everyone is starting to whisper among themselves. Some are worried that it is not safe.

"What makes you think there isn't any more walking around there?" This time it was Derek who spoke up. He asked the question that was on everyones mind.

Turns out, we found an old man inside A security guard actually. He's been locked up in there ever since this whole thing started"

"But there was still one of them inside during all this?" Derek asked again.

"He locked it up, said he didn't have it in him to put it down." Russell said looking the group over.

On the faces of everyone they have the expression of worry, they still are unsure about it.

"Guys, I know it will take time to get use to and you may never really feel safe...but we have no other option...Course you can get into a car and keep on driving until you find something...but chances are you're not going to find anything...or anyone"

He looks at everyone again and all eyes are on him, everyone is definitely listening.

"There are few doors and they are locked up tight. There is even food and water...even beds" He said with the last part with a smile creeping across his face.

Everyone is silent, waiting for someone to make the first move, and the first one to walk over to  
Russell's side is Rodney

"Can't say no to a bed. Especially after sleeping on that god awful cot" He says muttering under his breath.

"Anybody else?..."

Everyone else seems to think it through and then joins them, everybody is walking towards the door and Russell is leading the way.

Jay is sitting on the ground up against the wall, he see's everyone starting to leave, he tries to get up but with his leg still in pain he is having difficulties getting up.

He then sees Kelsey walking past and he tries to get her attention"

Excuse me?" Kelsey looks down at him. "Could you give me a hand?"

Kelsey is still very shook up and gives him a half smile

"Sure" She walks over and he stretches out a hand and she grabs onto it. Jay hoist himself up doing the best he can from making her fall down to the ground.

He puts an arm around her neck keeping the weight off his leg. He then makes a crack

"I promise I won't crumple you and crush you" She finally makes a smile and he looks down at her and he too smiles.

"There's that pretty little smile" She then begins to blush.

"I'm Kelsey" She says looking up at him smiling.

"Jermaine...everyone calls me Jay" He says looking down at her with a smile in return. They then follow everyone towards the door.

Sadie and Katie are also sitting down until Sadie gets up and looks down at Katie

"Come on sweetie" She holds out her hand towards Katie and the two walk off with the rest of the group hand in hand.

While walking Sadie looks behind her shoulder and sees the man walking behind them. She starts to think back to what Katie was saying about how he killed her father and it gets her worried.

She then brings Katie closer to her and the two walk off to go inside the Costco.


	18. Chapter 18

Back inside of the Costco, Corey and Ross moved towards the food court. Ross had just made a fresh cup of coffee from behind one of the concession stands.

He sits the cup down in front of Corey and then takes a seat down across from him with a cup in his hand for as well.

"I almost forgot what coffee tasted like" Corey says after taking a sip from his cup. The two then share a small laugh.

"So where are you and your group coming from?" Ross asks.

"We were holding out at a football dome not far from here" He says as he brings his cup up for another sip.

"Oh yes, that was one of the safe havens they put on the television."

"Why didn't you try to make it there?"

"I'm an old man, I never would have made it. Plus I have a good thing going on here" He says smiling while looking around the store.

"It's better you weren't there anyways"

"Whys that?" He asked intrigued

"It got overrun. Somehow they got inside. I'm not sure if anyone else other than us made it out"

The two continue to drink their coffee and thats when Russell returns leading in the rest of the survivors.

"You got some new tenants." Russell comes in smiling.

Everyone is still unsure if its safe or not. They all look around and they eventually all sit down at the tables that are scattered around in the food court.

Russell and Sarah join Corey and Ross at the table, sitting down next to them.

"Thank you Ross and you have my word that we won't get in the way or make a mess." Russell says to Ross.

"Please this is now your home, feel free" Ross replies.

"Glad to see you're okay" Sarah says looking over at Corey.

"I don't know if I should be more worried about the dead walking around or Russell." He says smiling and Russell just gives him a glare and then a smirk.

"What happened?" Sarah asks.

"He's just mad I saved his life." Russell says, and the two share a laugh.

XXXXXXX

Kelsey is helping Jay sitting down into a chair at one of the tables in the food court. Once all settled in she takes his leg and lifts it up onto the chair next to him letting it rest there.

After doing that she sits down next to him. She looks up at him and gives a shy smile.  
At the next table over Sadie is holding hands with Katie and they both sit down. Katie has been very quiet and been keeping to herself.

"So how old are you Katie?" Sadie asks the young girl sitting in front of her.

"I'm five and a half." She says in her cute little voice.

"Wow, You're old!" Sadie says trying to make her proud.

While playing with Katie for a little bit she looks over and see's the man that killed her undead father walking away from the group and turning down an aisle away from them.

She turns her attention back towards Katie.

"Wait right here okay sweetie" Katie nods her head and Sadie then gets up and walks down the same area she saw him walk near.

She looks down one aisle and see's nothing then looks down another and see's him leaving that aisle on the other end.

She does however not follow him, instead she turns down another aisle where they have coloring books. She grabs a couple books and looks over and see's crayons. She goes to reach for them when she hears a voice right behind her

"Wanna tell me why you keep staring me down?" Sadie startled quickly turns around holding the coloring books at her chest.

"I'm sorry?" She says innocently trying to avoid the situation.

"Three times. Twice on the roof and once just now at the food court." He says starting to hover over her.

"I'm-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare." She says looking up at him.

He continues to hover over her and just looks her down and then

"...Yeah, whatever" He begins to walk away as Sadie watches him walk off.

"I think you should say something to Katie!" She blurts out.

He stops walking and then slowly turns around and gives her a confused look.

"Excuse me?" He says scanning her face.

"Katie, the little girl"

"Yeah what about her?...but why should I say something to her?"

"The man you killed on the bus was her dad"

"Oh" He says simply.

"You should tell her you're sorry" She told him.

"But I'm not sorry" He said back quickly.

Sadie looks at him with disgust.

"What?" Sadie looks at him with disgust.

"If I had the chance, I'll do it all over again."

"Why are you so cruel?" That look of disgust has gotten even worse.

"Cruel?. Theres something you need to learn honey. The world is over. Done. Finished. Thats it...Now its about survival. I did what was best to save us all." He says.

"Save us all or save yourself?" She says feeling a little better about herself.

"You got something on your mind you wanna let out?"

"If you didn't kill that...that..thing. Chances are it would have gotten to us all including you" she says the last part pointing at him.

"But by killing him you saved yourself...you don't care about anyone but yourself."

He pauses for a second and thinks about what she has just said.

"..Well...I guess you're right about one thing then" And with that he walks away from her and she is just standing there watching him leave.


	19. Chapter 19

Sadie returns back to the group and sits down at the table with Katie again. She slide the coloring book and crayons across the table for her.

"I got you something" She says smiling at the 5 year old.

Katie screamed out in joy as she grabbed the coloring book and started coloring away. Her mind now in a daze as she flipped through pages, coloring everything and anything.

"Everybody listen up" Russell stood up and made sure all eyes were on him.

"Everybody here?" He looked around to see if anyone was missing.

"Yeah except the guy with the long hair" Corey piped in. Of course he's the one to mention that.

"You mean Shawn?" Sarah said.

"Shawn?" Sadie asked.

"Yeah, I remember when he came in on the bus for his examination. He was right behind you Sadie"

Sadie felt as ease now knowing his actual name.

"Okay well somebody can just pass this onto him then" He says as he continues with what he's saying.

"Even though there is bulks of water here I think we should put out some large storage bins out on the roof to catch any rain that falls"

Russell started to make a list of things that should be done and assigned everyone a job.

XXXXXXX

Its now the first night and everyone is pretty much settling in. Everyone is starting to feel just a little bit better, feeling more protected.

Sadie has been sticking with Katie the entire time Never leaving her site. She snagged a couple of blankets and pillows and had laid them down on the ground.

Sadie is sitting Indian style on the ground with her back up against the wall, Katie is lying down with her head resting in Sadie's lap and she is fast asleep.

She is soothing her head, running her fingers through the little girls blonde hair and gently rocking her back and forth, keeping her asleep.

XXXX

Up on the roof Russell was sitting on the ledge looking out into the dead world by himself. Thinking about his brother and how he came to where he was now.

He sat thinking about the past as the few zombies that were down below were snarling at him, wanting to eat his fresh meat.

"Didn't think anybody else was up here" Russell looked back and saw Sadie standing behind him with her arms crossed.

"Sorry, just came out here to get a breather"

"Same here, Katie is fast asleep so I asked Brandon and Jessica if they could watch her while I got some fresh air" She said.

He kept looking down as she came up and sat next to him on the ledge.

"I'm Sadie by the way...I know we were too busy running for our lives to actually introduce each other" She said with a chuckle.

He too had a grin on his face.

"Thomas, Thomas Russell" He said looking at her.

"Russell?...Any relation to Mark Russell?" She asked.

"Yeah he was my brother"

"Was?" She looked confused.

"He died yesterday"

Her face dropped a little.

"Who knows maybe he made it out of there alive" She said trying to brighten him up a bit.

"No. He wasn't in the stadium when it got over run. He got bit yesterday afternoon while he was out doing his runs"

Her dropped even more when she found out he was in fact dead and not possibly alive.

"It's not fun burying someone you love"

"At Least you got to give him burial" She said looking down wiping her tears away thinking about Stephen.

"You lost someone?" He asked the young girl.

"Yeah, my boyfriend. He also got bit"

"What happened to him?"

"Your brother shot him" She shrugging like it was no big deal.

"Well I know my brother likes to go after any girl but to shoot her boyfriend just to get to her is a little too much"

She cracked up while a few tears had slid down her face.

"He saved my life" She grabbed his arm. "You should be proud of him"

He looked down at the dead clawing on the brick wall trying to get to them. She gives him a hug and starts to walk back inside leaving him to be by himself.

"You're just like him you know" She said looking back at him from the doorway.

"How's that" He said back as he continued to look down at the dead.

"You also saved my life" And with that she walked back inside.

Leaving him to think about his brother more.


	20. Chapter 20

The following morning, everything was quiet. With everyone still fast asleep you are only able to hear the faint moans of the zombies outside and every so often a blood curdling screech.

But on the inside, there was not a sound to be heard...until..6AM hit that is. And once it did all the lights blasted on. There must have been some timer that had switched on everything. Including a display case that was standing out on the main hall with speakers on the side.

The speakers begin to a blare loud obnoxious sounds, and advertisement of some sort. Waking everyone up it startles the hell out of everyone, especially Shawn who comes running out with his gun pointed straight in the air.

He begins to spin around, pointing at everything in sight. He is panting from the sudden rush, he starts to calm down a bit when he see's that is was a display case that had gotten him riled up.

He then lowers his gun down to his side and looks it over.

He looks around to see that everyone is staring at him. Their eyes locked on him, all with smiles smeared on their faces. He looks at each and everyone of them, and he looks pissed off. He then looks straight ahead and walks back towards where he was sleeping, leaving everybody to snicker as he walked off.

He locked eyes with Sadie as he went back to where he had been sleeping, she started to smile at him.

XXXXX

Later on in the afternoon once everyone had awoken and shook off the events of earlier in the morning.

Jay is attempting to stand up but once he put a little weight on his leg he starts to feel a little pain so he sits back down on the floor, holding onto his leg trying to deal with the mild pain.

Kelsey then walks up with a smile on her face and something hiding behind her back.

"Good morning" She says smiling.

"Morning to you too" He says through the pain.

"How's your leg doing today?"

"Just dandy" He says sarcastically. "Hurts when I put weight on it"

"Thats why I'm here. I come bearing gifts" She then pulls out two items from behind her back her back, which is a set of crutches.

Jay looks up at her with a smile.

"Thank you Kelsey"

"You're welcome" She says smiling back.

"Now come on, get up. You gotta break them in."

She extends her hand out to him to help him get up. He puts the crutches underneath his armpits and walks around in circles.

"Perfect, thanks again" He said smiling at her.

"Anytime"

"You up for some breakfast?"

"Absolutely" The two then head towards the food court, Jay is using the crutches to get him their.

XXXXXX

Up on the roof Russell, Corey and Brandon are painting on giant signs with paint rollers. They finished some and stuck them on the side of the building some saying

"HELP" "SURVIVORS INSIDE" and many more.

Jessica who is Brandon's girlfriend is on the side of the roof looking down at the mass horde below them. The three men are working on their newest sign, when Corey looks up to see her and notices that she has a blank stare on her face.

"Hows your girlfriend doing...Jessica is it?" Corey says while he dips the roller into fresh paint and rolls it onto the sign.

"She's still a little shook up..Who isn't though right?" He looks up at her with a sad look across his face.

"Everyone just has a different way of dealing with it" Russell says.

"I guess it's just taking her a little while to process the whole thing" He stops what he does.

"She'll get there" Corey said.

"I know. Just has me worried since she only said one sentence ever since we were attacked" He said while looking a little down.

"I mean it's not everyday that you see a flesh eating man attack your friends and family on their own wedding day" He then continues to paint the sign and thats when Russell and Corey both stop what they are doing and look at each other.

XXXXX

Back inside Shawn is walking down an aisle looking for something in particular but is having trouble finding it. He exits that aisle and turns down into another, but stops suddenly when he see's Sadie and Katie in the same aisle.

Looking over he realizes he is in the toy section. He stares for a moment and then walks past them keeping his eyes straight ahead.  
Sadie see's him walking by and the two seem to lock eyes but only for a split second. She then brings her attention back towards Katie who is playing with toys.

XXXX

Charlie is sitting down in a chair just looking down at his shoes. Slowly moving back and forth, when his brother Craig comes walking up, Craig who is in his early to mid twenties with an average lean build to him.

He walks up to his younger brother who is around 18 19.

"Here you go Lil bro. I was able to snag some breakfast for you."

He says handing him a sandwich. Looking down at his brother who is not answering him.

"You take your medicine?"

Craig is still waiting for an answer but he's not getting any. All his life he's been taking care of his brother especially after their mother had passed away just a few years ago. Their father had left them shortly after Charlie was born.

Their father ran out when they knew something was wrong with Charlie. Being the unreliable father that he already was he decided to skip out of them.

Craig sighed as his brother never answered him or even took the sandwich.


	21. Chapter 21

Tick Tock Tick Tock.

Looking up at the clock, Derek started to go just a tad bit crazy, sitting in the main office waiting for the principal for the last half hour was not the only thing driving his head into wall.

It was the kid sitting next to him tapping his feet up against the chair making annoying sounds with each thud that hits the chair.

The kid with his shaggy blonde hair, by the looks of it a skater, looks over at him and gives a half smile.

"What you in for?" The kid ask Derek.

"Scuse me?" Derek asks right back at him.

"Why are you here?" He said, but slower this time.

"Oh uh..I disrupted the class."

The kid just scoffs

"That's it?"

"Yeah. Thats its" Not really giving him the light of day.

Derek just looked back up at the clock ignoring the kid who is still looking at him

"Don't you wanna know what I did?"

"Not really"

This kid obviously did something he's very proud of, but Derek, just really doesn't care.

"I cracked a stink bomb in the gym." The kid said while grinning from ear to ear.

Derek just gives him a glance

"Congratulations" Then simply looked back towards the clock.

"Best part, the class was in session and everybody was doing-"

"Alright Derek, Mrs. Lovelace will see you now." The office's Secretary said interrupting the kid while telling his story, which he was proud of.

"Oh thank God!" Derek said quickly getting up, he was desperately wanting to get away from this guy. Standing up he looks back down at the kid

"It was...interesting...talking to you." He then heads down the hall walking side by side with the secretary

"Couldn't get me outta of their sooner?" he said whispering to the secretary while waving off the kid.

They reach a door at the end of the hall that is wide open he peers in and see's his principal Mrs. Lovelace, a semi overweight black lady in her fifties.

"Good afternoon Derek, take a seat." She says getting up from her desk and shutting the door behind them, leaving only the two alone. She sits back down in her seat and looks down at a piece of paper lying on her desk.

"Says here that Mr. Boyce, found you watching "Son's of Anarchy" on a portable DVD player while class was in session"

"Yes Ma'am"

"A DVD player?" She said once more. "You actually brought a DVD player to school and watched it instead of doing your classwork?"

"Yes Ma'am, that's right" as if it was nothing.

"OK, let me get this straight. Instead of doing your work, which by the way you desperately need to do if you have any hopes of graduating this year, but instead you brought a DVD player so you can watch some television show?"

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. This is where I draw the line Mrs. Lovelace. Son's of anaarchy is not "some" show" He said using the air quotations.

"It is only the best, most addictive, thrilling suspenseful show to ever air on T.V" He said while being on the edge of his seat pounding on her desk.

"Derek... you're a bright, intelligent young man."

"You forgot handsome" He said with a smile.

This caused Mrs. Lovelace to smile

"...and handsome."

"Mrs. Lovelace are you flirting with me?"

"Derek!" She was starting to get serious. " The fact of the matter is this, if you keep going down the road you are taking now, you're not gonna graduate. You do wanna graduate don't you?"

"Yes Ma'am" He said quietly.

"You have a lot of work to catch up on. I know you have a part time job at that Restaurant "O' Brady's" as a dishwasher but you might wanna consider taking time off to catch up on your work"

"You don't have to worry about my job I don't work there any more, they fired me."

"Why?" She said tilting her head.

"I may have made an inappropriate joke...to the owners daughter" He said the last part quickly.

"What kind of joke?" She had that hint in her voice that she knew what type of joke it was but wanted to hear for herself.

"It involved me...and her...and a couch" As the sentence went on his voice kept getting lower and lower.

"Oh lord"

"Well I didn't know it was his daughter!" He started to get defensive.

"She's really hot and he's...well you know..not. He's a slob, she must get her hotness after her mother. I was just trying to make a joke"

"You might wanna tone it down a bit with the jokes"

"Why are they not funny?"

"They are funny..."

"Thanks" He butted it quickly.

"...But too many jokes is too many jokes."

"They say laughter is the best medicine"

"And it is, but if all you do is joke, nobody will ever take you seriously"

"What do you mean?

Mrs. Lovelace was trying her best to get through his tough skull without raising her voice.

"Have you ever heard of "The boy who cried wolf?""

"No Ma'am I have not."

"Tell you what, you go down to the library and ask the librarian for it and when she gives it to you, you read it and once you're done you come back here and we will finish this conversation where we left off, okay?"

"Umm okay?" He had that confused look on his face. He looks up at Mrs. Lovelace and she smiles towards the door.

Getting up, he walks towards the door and opens it up and walks back down the hall and into the main office.

"She tear you to shreds?" That same damn kid was still there.

"Okay bye!" He said running out the office and into the hallway of the school.

Derek walks up to the double doors of the library, opening it up he walks right in to see only one kid at a computer and the librarian was nowhere in sight.

"Hey, Miss. Granger?" Miss Granger was a very, very, old women. Hair as white as a ghost. Skinny as a toothpick.

He yelled out her name a few more times hoping maybe she would hear him from the back room. But he gave up once the other kid in the room shushed him.

He decides to go look for the book himself. He scanned every aisle looking what Mrs. Lovelace told him to read.

Finally after searching what felt like hours he finally found the book he was looking for. He takes it off the shelf and opens it up and starts to read it.

It didn't read long for him to realize what Mrs. Lovelace was talking about.

"I guess I should tone it down a bit" He said to himself.

He looks down both ends of the aisle seeing it's only him there. He puts the book back onto the shelf, probably in the wrong spot.

He leaves the aisle and walks back up towards the front desk which is still empty. He looks back at the computer to see that the kid that was there before is now gone, but his backpack was still sitting next to the desk.

He leans over the desk and yells back into the office behind the front desk.

"Bye Miss granger!" He never got a response. "Must've went to lunch"

He didn't think of it, he just shrugged it off and walked out the door and back into the empty hallways of his high school.

Back inside the library, Miss Granger walks out from the office, only thing is her left cheek is completely missing, blood still wet on the side of her face and dripping down her neck.

She staggers from behind her desk and is followed by another creature from the office. This one worse off than Miss Granger. It had a limb just hanging. They both stagger over towards the door.

Derek is walking back towards Mrs. Lovelace's office, he looks around and takes notice that the halls are empty.

But something caught his attention down at the ground, there was a trail of blood. He looks and also see's some blood smeared on the side of the walls.

He looks down at the end of the hall and see's a body on the ground and he's lying in a pool of his own blood.

"Help! Someone help, this kids hurt!" He yells in both directions of the hall. Trying to catch anyone in close proximity.

He runs over to the body and drops to the ground. Quickly putting both hands on the gash on his throat, putting as much pressure as he possibly can.

"He-" The kid now gasping for air as much air as he can. "-lp"

"Don't worry you'll be fine." He said trying to reassure the kid.

"HELP!" He looks down both ends of the halls and doesn't see anyone

"Where the hell is everyone!"

The kid lying on the floor is now gasping more and more.

"Come on, help is on the way!" He cries out frantically. The kid now has gasped his last gasp of air. Derek still with his hands on his throat, see's the he is no longer alive.

"No, No, No!" He said putting his forearm over his mouth, he is sick to his stomach.

He sits back a few feet away from the body. He looks at both his hands and they look as if they been dipped in a bucket of red paint. While looking at his hands he notices that the body in front of him is beginning to rise.  
Instead of being freaked out, he's angry.

"You son of a bitch!" He sits up straight.

"You think it's funny! Putting fake blood all over the place, pretending to be dying. I should kill you myself!" The kid bolts his eyes open, they are a milky color. Derek hops up on both feet.

"Get the fuck up!" He starts raising his hands up and balling it up making a fist.

"I'm gonna kick your ass!" He yelled out with his fists raised.

The kid still on the floor drags over to Derek's feet grabbing a hold of them, each time he does Derek kicks him off.

He lifts him up by the shirt and slams him against the wall. Keeping it pressed up on the wall the creature is snapping at him.

"What the hell?" A growl can be heard down the end of the hall. Derek looks down and see's Miss granger and another man he believes was the Janitor judging by the uniform he had on.

He lets the kid go as he drops to the floor he and takes a few steps towards the duo

"Miss. Granger? Are you alright" He is attacked from behind from the kid. Both falling to the floor, rolling from side to side.

The creature now on top while Derek on the bottom. The zombie still trying to snap at him, he grabs onto his neck and lifts him up, Both Miss Granger and the janitor are getting closer, he's able to flip one more time getting on top. He looks up and see they are right there. He gets up on his feet and takes a step back for every time they step forward.

The kid on the floor is now up and Derek is backing off, all three begin to pick up speed and thats when Derek hauls ass, being chased by three bloody creatures with loose limbs scared the holy hell out of him.

XXXX

Back in the present time, and back in Costco, Derek is pulling a mattress with rope tied around it, only thing is he is having trouble doing so.

He was trying to bring it back to his place he had set up as "Home". He see's Shawn walking by and he speaks up

"Hey can you give me a hand" Shawn doesn't even acknowledge him and keeps on walking.

"...Or not."

He goes back to struggling with the mattress. He attempts one strong pull and thats when he falls flat on his ass. He sighs in frustration.

"I meant to do that" He stands back up again and keeps on pulling.

**~~~~~~  
Now that they all have settled into a place I feel like I can talk more about each character. so yes i'll probably be jumping around with each one of them. Glad everyone is enjoying please continue to follow and leave more lovely reviews!**


	22. Chapter 22

It's now been 3 days they been hiding out inside of the Costco, so far there have been no attacks, everyone once in awhile a group of undead will come close to the building, but they never stay for long.

Everyone is sound asleep and once again at 6 A.M the display case come on and blares throughout the store, causing Shawn, also once again to come running out half asleep, with his gun in his hand he takes on look at the display case and without thinking unloads two shots into the speaker causing it to blow out.

"Piece of shit" He mutters to himself and then walks back towards his tent that he had set up.

XXXXX

Jay is walking towards one of the tables at the food court and takes a seat. His leg was starting to feel better having it hurt like hell the first day where he had to use crutches to get around, then the second day he was able to dump the crutches and he was able to walk around with a slight limp.

But today it was feeling better, so once he took a seat he bent down to his leg and rolled up his pants a little revealing a bandage wrapped around his leg. Once he finished unwrapping it he noticed the cut on his leg has healed.

Jay then starts to rub his leg a little and he feels no pain. He then stands up and does a little hop, again nothing. He then sits back down with a smile of relief on his face.

"I assume your leg is better?" Jay looks up to hear the sweet voice of Kelsey

The two have gotten real close the last three days, spending a majority of their days together. They both had set up a tent and had been sleeping together, Jay has been keeping her safe at nights.

"Much" He responded.

Giving her a deep kiss as she leans down towards him as he's sitting down.

She starts to smile, ever since the whole "living dead taking over the world" thing had began, shes been scared out of her mind, but ever since she had met Jay and spent time with him she's not really concerned with what's going on the outside.

XXXXXXX

Rodney is walking down each aisle with his hand in his pockets, strolling along looking for nothing in particular, he gasps when he enters into one of the aisles.

He looks up at the shelves and looks at the full stock in front of him and smiles.

He reaches up and grabs a bottle of scotch. His brown eyes are big and bright as he opens the bottle and takes a hard long swig.

He looks at the other varieties of liquor if front of him and he laughs a little to himself.

**Its just another night for Rodney Palmer, sitting on a stool in one of the cities low life bars. Drinking his pain away. **

**Sitting in front of him was a half bottle of scotch, scotch was is most favorable of all alcohol. There wasn't another soul in that bar expect the bartender, who was cleaning up shop.**

**"Bad news Mr Palmer, we closing up" He said as he wiped down the last of the dirty glass's.**

**"Another half hour" Rodney mumbled out in a drunken hoarse voice.**

**"No can do, you want me to call you a cab"**

**"Won't be necessary, cause I ain't leaving" He never looked up from his bottle of scotch.**

**"You leave me no choice then"The bartender comes from out behind the bar and grabs Rodney by the shoulders. He hoisted him up and brings him towards the door and tosses him outside onto the quiet city street.**

**"The hell with you!" Rodney shouts as he gets back onto his feet and dusted himself off.**

**"Go home!" The bartender shouts back as he walks back into his bar.**

**"You go home!" He says in a drunken slur.**

**Rodney gets into his beat up Oldsmobile, taking his key and turning on the car bringing the engine to life and putting it into drive. **

**He drives off onto the road. He then starts to pick up speed, he drives by a stop sign but does not stop instead keeps on driving. **

**Unfortunately for him there was a police officer hidden on the side of a road.**  
**Rodney looks back in his rear view mirror and notices a set of bright lights flashing behind him. **

**"Whoops" He still does not slow down in fact he speeds up, the sirens blaring behind him as he looks back on the road and starts to squint a little, trying to regain his eyesight from the double vision he's been having.**

**He starts to lose control of the car and ends of driving up on the sidewalk. Crashing into trash cans that are set on the side of the road. They start to fly behind him as he hits them. **

**He then swerves his car and hits the right side of his car against a building.**  
**The police officer hastily runs up to the side of the car with his gun drawn. He makes it to the window and thats when Rodney rolls it down. **

**"What seems to be the problem officer?"**

**The officer had arrested him and brought him down to the station. He was allowed one phone call so he called his son. **

**He was sitting inside of a cell when his son arrived at 4 in the morning.**

**"Hey pop" He said to his father while a cop opened the cell, letting him out.**

**"Lance, you made it" He said with a smile on his face. **

**"Should have left you this time" The two walked outside walking towards Lance's BMW **

**"How many times I gotta bail you out pop?"**

**"Won't happen again"**

**"Thats what you said last time, and the time before that and the time before that!" He said shouting at his dad.**

**"Keep your voice down, I have a headache" He said putting a hand to his head.**

**"Maybe if you stopped drinking all the damn time you wouldn't have a headache!" He said as his father opened the door.**

**"How's the wife and kids doing?" Rodney said trying to change the subject.**

**"Their mad enough at me I'm never home from work, now the one time I'm home with them, I gotta leave to bail out their grandfather!"**

**"So doing good then"**

**"Just because I'm a lawyer does not mean I'm there to bail you out! Sooner or later you're gonna have to live without me!" Once those words left his mouth he was tackled to the ground by a man.**

**"Lance!" Rodney runs around the front of the car and towards the other side to see the man ravaging his son.**

**XXXXXXXXX**

Rodney is back in the liquor aisle sitting down with his back against the rack, thinking about the past. With each painful memory he gulps down from the bottle of scotch.


	23. Chapter 23

Russell, Corey, Ross and Sarah are at one tables eating dinner together while the others are out and about doing their own things. most likely setting up their tents and making it feel at home.

"You guys finish the signs?" Sarah asked while taking a sip of her water.

"Yeah. Took longer than we thought." Corey responded. His hands covered in dry paint from all the signs that they have been doing the last couple days.

"What's tomorrow's agenda?" Sarah asked another question.

"We're gonna set up the CB and try to get in touch with the base in Iola." Russell piped in.

"You think they are still up and running?" Sarah asked.

"They were fine when we were okay" Russell says.

"What about the other places that the television said for us to go to?" Ross decided to get in on the conversation.

"Most of them never got set up fast enough so they were weak and easily overrun" Russell says back as he drinks from his cup.

"Good thing I stayed put then" He says aloud.

They all share a laugh at his remark.

"Well I know you're a soldier what about the rest of you?" Ross asks the rest of the group.  
"I was a nurse for St. Leo's hospital" She said. "Until the ER was full of flesh eating ghouls that is"

"You were at ground zero" Russell says.

"Sure was"

"Wait what do you mean ground zero?" Ross ask the two.

"Hospital were the most dangerous places to be when the outbreak started. We were all ordered to try to contain them as fast as possible but everything happened so quickly it never went as planned" Russell says as he decided to answer the question for her.

"Maybe about 10% of the employees didn't make it out alive" Russell continued.

"How did you get out?" Corey was the one to bring up the question.

"I switched shifts...Right before they came rolling in" She said with a look of sadness on her face.

They started all got silent when they saw the look on her face.

"How about you Corey, what did you do?" Sarah says trying to keep the conversation going but not being about her.

"A Cop"

"Was" Russell Says again correcting the sentence. He remembers him saying that when he was on the bus.

"That's right...was" He said correcting himself.

"What happened" Sarah asked trying to get more from him.

"Long story"

"I think we all have the time" She said laughing as the rest joined in on her even Corey decided to smile.

"Okay fine, two years ago I was on duty and it was during one of the college football nights. during those nights you have to deal with a lot of drunks so we had to be extra careful with drunk drivers" He took a break to take a sip from his cup.

"During this night I noticed a car swerving on the highway. So I pulled him over and another cop had pulled up behind me, I went to the drivers window and he went to the passengers side"

"Long story short he pulled a gun on me"

"Wow" She says.

"Let me correct myself...He pulled a gun on my partner first" He started to play with his cup while looking at it strangely.

"He didn't make it" He said finishing his sentence.

"What happened to the driver?" Sarah asked.

"I pulled my gun on him...he also didn't make it" He took a sip from his cup.

"Was the first time I ever killed anyone...let alone fire my gun"

The other three members of the group looked at each other as he started to finish his story.

"The thing that got to me the most was that he was just a kid. 17 years old"

Now came the awkward silence...until he spoke up again.

"That moment changed my entire life. I need therapy, I quit because I was afraid, my wife left me and took our daughter Holly with her"

"I'm sorry" Sarah says while placing a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, the past is the past" He says looking back up. "Besides we live in a different world now, time for new beginnings"

The four continued their night off with a few drinks. They all had just a little too much to drink. When they decided to call it a night they were left staggering back to their tents like they were also Zombies.

Everyone went their separate ways except Corey and Sarah who walked each other back to their tent.

"How long you been a nurse" Corey asked.

"Oh Corey, you know you shouldn't ask a drunk person a question that involves numbers" She said while laughing really hard.

"Well this is me" She said pointing to her tent. "Let me just fish out my ole keys outta my purse" She said mockingly.

"I had a great time tonight, something I needed for a long time" He told her.

"Lets see how you feel in the morning" They laughed. "Goodnight Corey"

"Night Sarah" He said back. She quickly came up and gave him a quick kiss.

After she finished she looked at him one more time with a smile on her face.

"Night" And with that she went into her tent leaving him standing there alone...and drunk.


	24. Chapter 24

Sadie woke up the next morning in her tent. She rolled over and saw Katie was still fast asleep in her twin size bed.

She got up and stretched out her arms and smiled as she watched Katie sleep peacefully. She got up from her bed and walked out of their shared tent and walked to the bathroom.

She went and did her thing in the bathroom and came out quickly. She decided to go find some breakfast for the both of them.

But something caught her eye when she walked out of the bathroom, something she never noticed there since the entire time she's been here.

A Payphone.

She went up to it quickly and picked up the receiver and heard a dial tone.

"Oh my god" She started to get excited.

"Money" she remember they took money and she didn't have any on her.

"I need money!" She ran around the store looking for any change. She ran up to the register and pushed any buttons hoping for it to open up.

Finally she pressed the right one and the cash register drawer opened up and it was full of change. She screamed out in joy and it caught the attention of Jay.

"I wouldn't be so excited to see money anymore Sadie..Money has no value these days"

She grabbed all the quarters and laughed as she put them in her pocket and ran back towards the pay phone.

When she reached the phone she started to get nervous and shaky as she put in the change. Jay was right behind her.

"Hey what's going on babe?" Kelsey asked Jay as she came up from behind him.

"Damn girl finally lost her mind"

She punched in the numbers on the box and heard it start to ring. She smiled when she heard it ringing.

She got even more excited when someone picked up the phone.

"Hel- Hello!" The person on the other end said frantically.

"Mom?" Sadie said as she wasn't sure if it was her or not

"SADIE?! THAT YOU?!" She screamed back into the phone.

"MOM!" She started to cry out.

"Mom it's me, it's me"

"Oh my god baby it's so good to hear your voice. Where are you?!"

"I'm in North Carolina still. Where is dad?"

"He's right here honey hold on!" She turned her cell onto the speakerphone so they could both hear her daughters voice.

"Honey?"

"DAD!"

"Are you safe sweetie"

"Yeah i'm safe" She said with her face full of tears.

"Where are you?" Her dad asked.

"I'm inside of a costco"

"Are you alone?"

"No. No there are others...Where are you guys?"

"We're in the Breakers Hotel. The military contained it and we're here safely" This time it was her mom.

"I wanna be with you guys" She said choking up.

"Honey don't leave there if your safe"

"But I wanna be with you"

"We wanna be with you also but do not leave there. I'll figure something out" Her dad said.

"I love you guys!"

"Lo-e yo- t-" The phone started to lose bad connection and it went completely dead. She looked over at Jay who was still standing there with Kelsey

"They're alive!" She cried out as she covered her mouth in joyful tears as Jay came and embraced her.


	25. Chapter 25

Later on the day after.

Sadie had calmed down from her excitement from earlier when she finally made contact with her parents.

She tried calling back a few times but it would go straight to voicemail. She hasn't left it's side since then.

"Sadie" Katie said coming up in a cute little tired out voice.

Sadie turns around and see's her little self standing there.

"I got scared" She said.

"OH!" She realized she had left her in the tent sleeping all by herself.

"I'm sorry sweetie" She gave her a big hug.

"I really am, I got excited cause I got to talk to my mommy and daddy" She told her.

"I wish I could talk to my mommy and daddy"

Realizing she put her foot in her mouth by saying that at the wrong time she gave her a look of sympathy and a big hug.

Then she started to think about something. Her dad was at the stadium...but what about her mom.

She wanted to ask but if her mom died then she could get upset, but then again if her mom was alive she could maybe somehow help them reunite.

She let go of the embrace of the hug and looked at the little girl before her.

"Katie...can I ask you a question?"

"What is it Sadie?" She said in her cute little voice of hers.

"Where is your mommy?"

Afraid to know what her answer is she started to wince like she is in pain.

"She's at home, me and my daddy were at my grandma's house but mommy stayed home"

"Do you know your mom's number?" Sadie looked at her puzzled, thinking that is was going to be a longshot.

XXXXXXX

Charlie is sitting inside of their huge tent that Craig had set up for them. Everyone welcomed themselves to the camping section and got their own big pricy tents for them to sleep in.

He was sitting there eyes glued to the television set that Craig brought in and hooked up. He would just play random movies just so his brother would stay calm.

Craig was trying on some new shoes he had found and was looking up at Charlie every so often as he would tie his shoelaces.

He's starting to get worried about his younger brother knowing that his medication is running low and that he's gonna need some soon.

XXXXXXX

Today went by fast, everybody went and pretty much did their own thing as Russell was still hard at work painting those signs.

He also had Corey take all the water and any kind of other beverage and put it into one location so they could keep track on how much they had.

There hasn't been any rain yet so the bins they put on the roof are completely dry. But it's better to be prepared he always said.

He also had Sarah set up a first aid room back in one of the back rooms. She organized all the medicine, bandages and what not into one room and made a little bed in there as well.

Even though it's over the counter medicine it was something she had to work with. But her room came out great and whenever someone had a cut or anything she was there to clean it properly.

XXXXX

Jay was walking around the store aimlessly trying to find anything to do. Normally he would be with Kelsey but she was hanging out with Sadie and Katie having girl time.

Brandon was with Jessica as usual and felt they needed to be together.

Russell and Corey are doing their own thing. He doesn't see much of the other guys and Shawn is a complete mystery. So he's on his own for right now.

He stumbles into the sporting goods section looking at what they had on the shelves. He grabs a basketball and dribbles it around a bit.

He looks further down on the shelves and see's a big box with a picture of a basketball hoop on it and another box behind it.

He starts to smile like he's got an idea and starts to move the boxes out from the shelves.

XXX

Russell came inside from his day of painting signs. He meets up with Corey who is done putting all the water in one spot. He's sitting down at the food court taking a sip of water talking with Sarah.

"I think that'll do it with the signs" He said sitting down in the chair next to them taking a bottle of water as well.

"All finished up?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah. It's gonna be hard for anyone to miss us in this building" He replied back.

"Attention Costco survivors...Attention Costco survivors please report to towards the back of the building near aisle 12"

They all listened in on the voice that blared throughout the speakers in the building.

"Was that Jay?" Russell asked.

Everybody went to the location of the store where Jay had told them to and when they did they saw Jay standing in the middle of a basketball court that he had made.

There he stood standing between two basketball hoops set far across from each other, surrounded by a line of paint creating a basketball court. Complete with a 3 point line.

"Anybody up for a game of ball?" Jay asks with a smile as everyone arrives.

"You do this yourself?" Russell asks.

"Damn straight I did" Jay is very proud of himself.

"I was wondering what you were doing when you weren't back at our tent" Kelsey said aloud.

"Figured everyone is getting bored, so I thought I would do something to pass the time for everyone."

"Are you sure you're up for it, I mean your leg-" Kelsey starts to say.

"-Is fine" He said reassuring her.

"Lets play a little game of 21. Who wants to play?" Jay looks around the group and Russell, Corey, Derek and Brandon all raise their hand.

"OK we can do 3 on 3. Russell, Corey and Derek vs Me, Brandon and..." He looks around after figuring out he was short a player

"...Craig you in?"

"Ugh no thanks, I'm not big on basketball." Craig said sitting in a lawn chair next to his brother.

"Anybody else...Rodney?" Jay asks the old man.

"Boy you out your damn mind! You gonna give me a heart attack!" Rodney exclaims.

"C'mon, I just need one more player. Somebody?" Jay starts to get frustrated.

"Well there is one more person you haven't asked." Sadie jumps into the convo.

"Who?" Is all Jay said.

XXXXX

Shawn is sitting in a recliner that he brought to his tent he had set up on the other end of Costco, away from everyone else.

He has been a very private guy since they arrived at Costco, not wanting to talk to anyone unless he had too.

"You want me on your team?" Shawn said while sitting in his chair with the legs stretched out. He is being towered by Sadie and Jay.

"C'mon Dawg. All I need is one more guy." Jay said pleading.

"It'll be fun" This time it was Sadie. Shawn still doesn't seem interested.

"Come on you could use the points" She continued.

"I could use the what?" Shawn says giving her a questionable look.

"If you haven't noticed yet...a lot of people around here are thinking twice about you" Sadie said the last part quietly.

"You sure know how to get me to join." Shawn says sarcastically. As the two stare him down he starts to rethink his decision.

"...Fine!."

Jay then laughs as he his excited he can finally play his game. He tosses the ball at Shawn as he walks back towards the basketball court.

" You'll have fun" They all walk back towards the court as they rejoin the rest of the group.

"Found my guy!" Jay exclaims.

Corey looks over to see Shawn approaching the group.

"Great, this guy" He mutters.

"You gonna be alright with him?" Russell ask so only Corey can hear.

"Yeah...no problem" Corey says.

"Who wants to jump for the ball?" Jay asks looking around at all the players.  
Corey steps forward for his team, knowing it will piss him off Shawn decides to step up for good measure.

Ross is holding the ball as the two meet in the middle of the court.

"Fancy meeting you here" Shawn says to Corey as the two prepare to jump for the ball.

"Don't start with me" He says coldly.  
Ross then throws the ball into the air and both men jump for it, but Shawn does so where he bumps Corey in mid air causing him to fall to the ground and him having the ball with no trouble getting it.

"Son of a bitch did that on purpose." Corey says as he gets up dusting himself off.

Shawn quickly passes it to Jay and Jay immediately dunks it into the basket without any problems. He comes running up on defense smiling as Kelsey is on the sideline clapping her hands and cheering him on.

Derek inbounds the ball, passing it to Russell. He quickly runs up the court and into the middle trying to make a layup but by doing that, all three players on the other team go after him, Russell see's he has no chance so he quickly passes it to Corey who is wide open.

He goes in for a layup but Shawn see's this, so without any hesitation he runs up and blocks his shot and causing him to fall to the ground again.

Shawn picks up the ball and runs down the court and lays it into the basket.

Shawn runs back onto defense passing Corey along the way.

"Are you looking for trouble?" Corey says pissed off.

"Wouldn't dream of it" Shawn says as he is back stepping, smiling his ass off at Corey.

Russell has the ball and this time he successfully lays it into the basket. Brandon runs up the court passing it to Shawn, Shawn passes it to Jay and Jay passes it back to Brandon and he takes a shot and makes it in.

Corey runs down the court, dribbling the ball on the ground. Shawn decides to defend him, knowing it will piss him off again.

He steps up to Corey and without any trouble swipes the ball from Him, He then runs down the other end of the court with Corey right on his tail, Shawn throws it in the air towards the hoop and does an alley oop to Jay as he dunks it in.

Shawn runs down the other end of the court, he looks up to see Sadie smiling at him.

The two then lock eyes and he even smiles back, he's actually having a good time and she can see it.

Derek comes running up and stops, he shoots the ball from the middle of the court without thinking.

The ball does not even get close to the hoop as it hits a wall far away from the court.

"What the hell was that?!" Russell yells over at Derek.

"I usually make those" Derek says and quickly runs back on defense.

Brandon runs up the court and he takes a shot but he misses it hitting the rim causing it to bounce back.

Later on in the game the team of Jay, Shawn and Brandon are up with 20 points and the others only have 15, with Russell doing most of the work for them.

Brandon runs up and passes it to Shawn. Corey is defending Shawn and he is doing some nice dribbling to confuse Corey.

He fakes the shot causing Corey to jump in the air and while he is in the air he passes the ball underneath his legs to Jay.

Jay now has the ball but he is blocked by Russell, once Corey is back on the ground he turns around to get Jay, Jay quickly passes it back to Shawn who is now wide open, Shawn shoots the ball and makes it in.

"And thats game!" He says as it swishes through the nets.

Corey looks really pissed off, he's been made a fool of numerous times in this game.

"Thats what I'm talking bout!" Jay yells as he celebrates with his team.

"You were great out there" Kelsey says coming up to Jay.

"Like what you saw huh?" Jay says as he wraps an arm around her shoulder bringing her closer to him.

"You're all sweaty. You must be exhausted" She says.

"Nothing like a nice jacuzzi will fix that problem." He says as the two start to walk away, but stop when they approach Shawn.

"Good game bro" He says

"Right back at you" Shawn says while damping himself with a towel.

"By the way you played ball, I know for damn sure you didn't learn that in any YMCA. Where you from?" Jay asks.

"Philly" He responds.

"That's what I'm talking bout"

He then gives a dab to his teammate and then walks off with Kelsey's arm wrapped around his waist.

"Told you, you would have fun" Shawn turns around to see Sadie standing there with her arms folded.

"Well you proved to be right in the past" He responds to the brunette that's now standing in front of him, she begins to smile.

"You played well" She says giving him a compliment and he responds with a half smile and a nod.

"See you around" She begins to walk off and Shawn watches her.

"Sadie!" She turns back around to face Shawn who is still standing in the same spot.

"I was gonna go up to the food court to get some water, you wanna join me?"

"Ugh I have to put Katie to sleep, She never falls asleep unless I'm there with her." Shawn looks somewhat disappointed.

" Another time?" She asks

"...Sounds good" The two then smile and she walks off and Shawn watches her leave.

XXXX

Sadie was smiling as she walked away from Shawn. She enjoyed watching him play basketball and better yet enjoyed watching him have fun. Ever since she first saw him he always looked sad.

Since they left the stadium everyone has been mumbling about him. Thinking he's a dangerous guy and how he might snap and kill them. Especially since he won't give up the gun that he got from one of the fallen soldiers.

But deep down she knows he's different than what everyone thinks he is. They just need to talk to him and get to know him. Hell if anyone else had the chance to grab a gun during this time of their lives they would be doing the exact same thing.

All he is thinking about is surviving, And he's doing just that.

Her smile started to fade when she reached the phone. She was getting nervous, she lied to Shawn about how she had to go to get Katie to sleep.

She had already fallen asleep, but earlier when she asked Katie if she had her moms phone number she actually did.

Her parents always put a paper in her pocket with both their work and cell phone numbers just incase she got lost.

Good thinking on their part.

She pulled out a piece of paper that had her mom's number on it and dialed it.

She let out a huge sigh as it started to ring...And then...

"Is this Melissa?..." She said as she heard someone answer the phone.


	26. Chapter 26

The next morning, Sarah was walking down towards the food court to get her some breakfast but stops when she hears her name being called from behind her.

"Hey Sarah can I talk to you for a second?"

Sarah looks back to see Craig running up to her.

"Sure...Greg right?"

"Craig actually" He said correcting her.

"Sorry"

"No it's okay. You're a doctor right?"

"Um no I'm a nurse" This time it was her correcting him.

"Well you're in the same field"

"Is something wrong?" Sarah said getting straight to the point.

"I'm fine, its my brother"

"Has he been...you know?" Referring to being bitten.

"No! No nothing like that" He said reassuring her. "It's just that he has this condition..."

"Uh huh" She says as she listens intently as he continues on. She knows what he is in fact talking about.

"If he stays on his meds he's right as rain, but if he isn't on it..."

"Yeah I think I know what youre talking about"

"Well, the thing is he only has enough meds until tomorrow and I've looked everywhere in this place and can't find any."

"Of course you're not gonna find any here, those are some pretty strong meds"

"Thats why I'm here, I was wondering if maybe you knew of any...breathing techniques or something" He said the last part like he wasn't sure he really wanted to ask.

"I'm sorry Craig. But controlled breathing cannot control a mind that's affected like his" She told him with a sorrowful look.

"I was afraid you were gonna say that." His head now looking down at the ground.

"My only advice is to keep him as calm as you can. You don't wanna upset him, even over the littlest thing."

"Well, thanks anyway." He said as she gave him a weak smile. He then walked off.

XXXXX

Russell and Corey are sitting inside of Russell's tent setting up the CB radio. They had attempted to use it the first day they had gotten there but the radio was not getting a signal what so ever.

So Russell had tried his best to mess with it on the inside so they can attempt to get a connection with the base in Iola.

"Alright lets see what this can do" Russell says as he closes it back up and sets it up on a desk he set up inside of his large tent.

He turns on the radio and they get a very large feedback playing.

"What the hell is that?!" Corey asks while covering up his ears.

"Someones sending out a signal!" Russell yells back as he changes the frequency.

He catches something trying to catch the right frequency.

"Got it"

"static-peat-static-ola-uge-" Russell mess's with the frequency once more until he finally got a clear reception

"Repeat. The Iola refuge is no longer intact. Do not in any circumstances try to attempt to make any contact or attempt to reach the base, we have been overthrown by the dead"

The two men look each other over.

"Its a recording" Russell says.

The two men just look at eachother with a daze.

XXXXX

Sarah was looking for Craig. It had been Two hours since she last talked to him about his brother and she had an idea that she wanted to run by him.

She finally caught sight of him, he was inside of his tent with his brother Charlie. Charlie was sleeping on his cot and Craig was sitting by his side just watching him.

"Hey Craig" Sarah says into a whisper not wanting to wake up his younger brother. Craig looks back to see Sarah standing just outside, she begins to wave him over and he quietly walks out towards her.

"Hey Sarah"

"How's your brother dong?"

"He's still on his meds so he still pretty mellow" He says as he looks back at his sleeping brother.

"Thats why I actually came over here"

"You found some?" He started to get excited.

"No" His excitement now turned into disappointment.

"But it got me thinking and I remembered there's a pharmacy not far from here. Thought maybe we can make a trip to get your brothers medicine."

"Oh my god thats great!" His smile returned.

"Alright, well get ready if we leave now we can make it back in time before it gets dark" She says as he runs into his tent and Sarah walks off in the opposite direction.

XX

Russell and Corey are talking about what they heard on the radio.

"Lets just keep this information to ourselves" Russell said to Corey "We don't wanna crush anyone's hopes of getting out of here"

"Couldn't agree anymore" Corey says as he see's Sarah coming towards them.

Sadie comes walking up to the two men.

"Hey guys"

The both greeted her as she came to them.

"Great game last night" She said picking on them after their loss from last night.

"Yeah yeah yeah. What can we do for ya" Russell said to her.

"I'm here for a favor"

"That being?" Russell asked.

"I got ahold of Katie's mom last night on the phone"

"What? How?" Corey said.

"She had her number in her pocket"

"She okay?" Russell asked.

"Yeah she's fine. She's held up in some house by herself"

"What's the favor...?" Russell kinda knew where this was starting to go.

"I was wondering if we could go get her"

Russell started to sigh. Going out there was dangerous but then again it was a 5 year olds mother.

"Please?"Sadie started to beg. "She has nobody else"

"Like most of us"

"She's 5" Sadie started to give a mean look towards Corey after his remark.

"Where is she?" Russell asked.

"I wrote down the address" She pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to Russell.

"Charlotte?!" He says after he read it. "That's over 2 hours away.

"Hey guys" Sarah says joining the three.

"What's up?" Corey says to her.

"Was looking for you Russell"

Corey looked a little disappointed with what she had said.

"Can I borrow your gun for a couple hours?" She asks as the two men look each other over and smile.

"Why on earth would I do that?" He said smiling bright. Forgetting that Sadie was there as well.

"I need to go out and get some things for Craig's brother"

"...And whatever it is he needs isn't in here" He said extending his arms to indicate that they are inside of a warehouse.

"It's medicine. He has this condition that if he is off his meds he's gonna go bizerk and the medication for it is some strong stuff, they don't carry that kind of stuff here"

"And you know a place that does?" Russell asks the women in front of him.

"Yeah, theres a pharmacy not too far from here so me and him are gonna go"

Russell and Corey look each other over again and just keep on smiling until Corey speaks up

"Does anybody else wanna go out into the dead infested world while we're having this discussion!" Russell yells out as he's annoyed they all came to him at once.

"I'm not asking for you to go and I said Craig and I will"

"Listen Sarah why don't you stay here and we will go" He says as he points back and forth to him and Russell.

"I can do this Corey" She says defensibly.

"I'm not saying you can't. I just think it's a better idea if you stay here, you're the doctor" Corey says.

"Nurse" She says correcting him.

"You have more knowledge than any of us here, you are our doctor" He says to her.

"He's right Sarah and besides Corey and I know how to handle ourselves in situations like these" Russell decides to speak up.

"Oh really, you two have been training for the Zombie Apocalypse" She says sarcastically.

At this point Craig comes walking up to the group.

"Hey you ready to go?" He says to Sarah.

"Change of plans Craig. Corey and I are going" Russell says to Craig.

"Okay whatever but lets hurry up I wanna get back before Charlie wakes up."

"No I think you misunderstood me, Corey and I are going...Alone" Russell says correcting himself.

"No" Craig said immediately " I think I should go too. His medication has to be very specific"

"It's okay I think we'll be able to handle it" Russell says to Craig.

"Okay fine! But what you need is..." He begins to ramble on about the specifics of his brothers medication.

Russell and Corey begin to lose their train of thought and get confused. The two look at each other and both declare

"You can come" They said in unison.

"Wait what about her mom?" Sadie said trying to make sure they didn't forget.

"Who's mom?" Sarah asked confused.

"Katie's mom is alive and in Charlotte" Sadie said.

"Charlotte's like 2 hours away" She said.

"I'm aware of this" Russell said.

He let out a sigh of frustration...

"Alright fine, but if we're gonna do this we're gonna do this right. We go pick up the meds and then go for her mom in Charlotte"

"Wait" Corey says thinking about something. "We're just gonna go out there with only one gun?" He says towards Russell.

"Well lets go ask the kid for the gun" Russell says talking about Shawn.

"You know he's not gonna hand it over" Corey says talking about Shawn's stubbornness.  
Russell thinks it over for a second and then.

"Well, lets invite him then" Russell says to the man before him. Then he looks back at Sadie.

"Did you tell Katie you talked to her mom" He asks her.

"No. She didn't know I called. I wanted her to talk to her if I got ahold of her on the phone but her mom told me not to tell her"

"Good thinking mom" Russell says to himself.

"Hows that?" Sarah asked.

"So she's not crying for her to be here with her" Russell says. "Corey go get the gun from the kid, Sarah go get everybody and meet us back here. Sadie and I are gonna go call Katie's mom"

Everyone breaks away from the group and goes to do what Russell says.

XXXXXX

Shawn is at one of the vending machines looking it over.

Corey is standing a good distances away from him watching him.

Shawn realizes he has no change for it so he looks at the wall to the right of him and picks up a fire extinguisher and smashes it through the glass of the vending machine and clears out the edges of glass and then takes out a candy bar.

"You know there's an aisle dedicated to candy right over their" Corey says pointing to the Candy aisle.

"I know but this snickers bars has been calling my name" He said taking a bite out of his candy bar.

Corey just watches him over and Shawn is getting annoyed.

"Is there something you need?"

"Your gun" He said simply.

"Sorry it's not for sale" Shawn starts to walk away but is stopped by Corey.

"Russell, Craig and I are going out to get some things and to go pick someone up"

"Picking up a hot date?"

"No..the little girls mom is alive...you know the one who's dad you shot" Corey had heard about the dead man being the father of Katie.

Shawn gave him glare and then..

"Well good luck with that" Taking another bite of his snickers bar.

"It's very simple, either give me the gun or..."

"And option B is?" Shawn interrupts him.

"You come with us" Corey declared to the younger man standing in front of him.

Shawn thinks about it for a second and then finally decides. He pulls the gun from out behind his back that was tucked in his waistband and hands it to the man in front of him.

Corey goes to reach for the gun but when his hand is just inches away, Shawn quickly pulls it back and says.

"Option B it is" He says putting his gun back where he pulled it from.

Corey gives him an evil glare and was really hoping he would hand over the gun so he wouldn't have to see his face anymore.

XXXXXX

Sadie and Russell are back at the pay phone, She grabs the piece of paper with her number from her pocket and drops some quarters into the machine and dials the number.

After a few rings she finally answers.

"Melissa? It's Sadie. You okay?"

"Yeah i'm fine...how's my little girl?" She says back to her.

"She's great. She's coloring right now"

She starts to sob on the other line, even Russell was able to hear her. Russell and Sadie look at each other.

"It's okay Melissa. I have Russell here with me he's coming to get you. He wanted me to call to tell you he's on his way so be ready"

She starts to cry some more "Okay" She says to Sadie.

"So just hang back, he's gonna be awhile since its a long drive"

She agreed to her as she cried the entire time. Sadie then hung up the phone.


	27. Chapter 27

After the phone call to Katie's mom they all met back up with the group and told them the plan. Then after that they went up to the roof.

Russell, Craig and now Jay are huddled onto the roof talking over a plan to hot wire a vehicle in the parking lot for their mission.

"Heres the plan, While you go hot wire the black SUV parked over there" Russell says pointing to the SUV thats parked in the parking lot.

"I'll cover you from up here, once you got the truck going you drive it around the back and Ross will be there with the gate open for you to drive it up into the loading dock."

"You sure you know how to do this?" Craig said asking Jay.

"Done this plenty of times. I'm more worried bout you covering me" Jay said looking over at Russell.

"Don't worry, it's pretty thinned out, out there. Anything that comes close I won't have any trouble taking it out" Russell said reassuring him.

"You ready to do this?" He asked Jay.

"Lets do it" Jay said as he walks over to the edge of the roof and climbs down the ladder. He jumps off the bottom step and onto the ground. He looks around making sure its clear and it is.

Russell is up on the roof watching Jay's every step. He runs over to the black SUV and pulls on the handle only to discover that it was locked.

He runs around to check all doors and even the trunk door all being locked.

Jay looks up at Russell and decides to make a risky decision, he takes a rather large rock in the grass not far away and throws it into the very back window, causing a large ruckus.

He jumps into the back window, crawling over the seats and underneath the steering wheel.

"This guy is wanting to get himself killed" Russell says to himself as he looks through the scope on his gun.

Russell is looking him over. He looks over to his left and see's a couple of Zombie's staggering around. The sound of the window crashing must have caught their attention.

He looks over at the Zombies that saw Jay crawl into the window, start to run full speed at the truck.

Russell starts to tighten his finger on the trigger and blows one of them away. Jay who is taking the cover off from underneath the steering wheel, after hearing the first gunshot he looks up and stares out the window and see's two Zombies running towards the truck.

He see's one of them fall as he hears a gunshot blast in the distance. The last Zombie is trying to jump into the back window.

Jay quickly gets back underneath the steering wheel and twists some wires around causing the engine to roar to life. He sits back up and looks behind him seeing the Zombie trying its best to crawl up in the front to reach Jay.

Russell cannot get a clear shot now since the dead man entered the Truck

"Fuck" He whispers to himself.

Jay steps onto the gas speeding off into the parking lot, driving around frantically, causing the dead man in the back to hit the sides of the truck. He drives around to one side of the building but turns hastily when he see's a large group of dead in front of him.

Jay drives back around the other way passing Russell. The group is on Jay's tail.

"Craig get down to the warehouse and get Ross ready to open the gate. Be careful for anything!" Russell yells to Craig. Craig runs back inside and down the steps quickly.

Russell takes multiple shot taking anything down, he was successful on a couple of attempts. The rest of the group rounded the corner along with Jay behind the building. Russell runs to the other side of the ledge and takes a few more shots.

Jay is driving straight towards the gate which is slowly opening, once it was clear enough he drives right through and Ross and Craig quickly close the gate behind him.

Russell is back on top of the roof shooting down below. He then runs inside and down the stairs.

Back inside the loading dock, Jay jumps out of the truck with the Zombie falling out of the drivers seat thrashing at him. Jay picks up a pipe and bashes his head in causing to show brain matter.

Russell comes running ready to shoot, he catches sight of the Zombie and Jay with the bloody pipe in his hand.

"Everything under control?" Russell asks.

"Yeah, yeah we good." Jay says panting.

"I think we got another problem" Craig said looking over at the gate, which is being thrashed at. The group of Zombies on the other side have reached the gate pounding their bloody fists on it.


	28. Chapter 28

Shawn is inside of his tent, getting ready to go out into the dead world. Once he's ready he decides to go meet up with the rest of the group at the loading dock where Corey told him to meet up with him and the rest of the guys.

When walking towards the dock he catches in the corner of his eyes and see's Katie the little 5 year old playing with dolls in the toy section.

He stops for a second and after what felt like a long decision he walks over towards her with an uneasy look on his face.

He slowly approaches the little blonde girl and takes a quick look around making sure nobody is watching.

What Sadie had said to him the first day they got here was starting to eat away in his head.

"Hey...Katie" He said slowly and awkwardly.

She doesn't respond, she keeps on playing with her dolls and doesn't take notice that he is there. Shawn however feels awkward being there.

"...Mind if I sit." Again no response, so he just takes a chair that is three times to small and sits down in it and after another awkward moment decides to speak up again.

"Um... Katie I know your mad at me about what I did to your...Daddy" He said trying to search for the right word.

"But uh... there's something you need to know...That man that I killed wasn't your daddy" The little girl still does not look over at him, she just continues to play.

"I know it looked alot like him on the outside but on the inside it wasn't"

"...And if I let him in, he would have hurt everyone...even you" He stops and takes another look around.

"I understand if you don't wanna forgive me... I just hope you understand why I did what I did" He wasn't even sure how to talk to a 5 year old. He never talked to kids before.

Shawn said what he wanted to say, so he decides to get up and leave. As he walks out of the toy section he is stopped when he hears a soft voice.

"You wanna play?" He turns and looks back and the little girl on the floor.

"...Maybe later, I have something I have to do" The little girl smiles and Shawn returns with a half weak smile but it quickly disappears.

He walks out of the toy section and stops eruptively and looks ahead of him. Standing there in the clothes section is Sadie looking through a rack of clothes. But she stopped what she was doing a long time ago and she is just standing there looking back at Shawn.

The two lock eyes but only for a second and Shawn quickly walks off towards the loading dock leaving Sadie there along with a smile appearing across her face.

~~~~~~~

**I know this was short but I just wanted to do this one quick scene. :)**


	29. Chapter 29

" I made a list of some stuff you guys should get, just a couple of things like drugs and some equipment." Sarah said handing Corey a list of things to get.

"Anything else?" He asks as he fold the paper into his side pocket.

"Yeah. Be safe"

"Will do. See you when we get back"

"Alright heres how we are gonna do it" Russell says to Sarah with Craig, Corey and Ross also in the group.

"Corey, Craig and I will get into the truck. You go and get everybody onto the roof and make a lot of noise to drive that horde away from the gate."

Now he talks to Ross.

"When I give you the go ahead you open up the gate and we drive it?" He turns his attention to everyone now

"Got it?"

Everyone agrees and Corey hops into the drivers seat and Craig gets into the back seat behind Corey. Shawn enters the loading dock and Russell looks him over.

"Glad to see you finally decided to join us" Russell says to him.

"What can I say I always wanted to be part of the "A-Team" " He says back to him.

"Seriously can we head out now!" Craig said poking his head out the window.

"Patience... Shawn get in" The two men get into the truck.

Ross is ready to push the button to open up the gate. The pounding is still very heavy.

XX

Everybody else gathered onto the roof after Sarah went and talked to everyone. They looked down below and saw the horde that was surrounding the gate door.

"Everyone over here!" Sarah yells out to the group. She is standing by on the other end of the building so they can drive the horde away from the gate.

Everyone starts to scream at the top of their lung, jumping up and down yelling. Even banging the brick with lead pipes.

Back inside everyone is in the car waiting for the banging to quiet down. Waiting impatiently.  
After a few more minutes the banging finally stopped.

"Alright ready guys?" Russell asks everyone inside the Truck. He pokes his head out the window "

"Alright Ross lets do it" Ross then pushes the button and the gate opens up with a clear path to the outside.

The truck drives down the ramp without any problems and Ross closes the gate without any trouble.

They now drive out onto the main road, exiting the parking lot of Costco. Everyone on the roof is waving goodbye and shouting good luck.

Rodney looks at Sarah and see's a worried look across her face.

"Don't worry they will be fine" she looks next to him and smiles.

Back inside the car, Corey is driving down the road while Russell reaches inside of his bag pulling out two walkie talkies.

"I brought these just in case we split up" He hands one of them to Craig sitting in the back seat. Keeping the other one.

After about ten more minutes Corey is looking around outside.

"Should be close"

Everyone is looking around trying to spot the pharmacy.

"Right there on your left" Russell said pointing to the pharmacy.

Corey see's it and pulls into the parking lot. Luckily for them there isn't a zombie in site.

Corey parks a distance away from the front door. Russell looks at all three men

"Alright guys listen up. Just because there aren't any dead around doesn't mean we can all just walk in there like it's a normal day. Be quiet, if you see anything try to signal the others but quietly"

Shawn is tying up his hair so it won't get in the way. He then takes his gun and gets it ready.

"You know how to use that?" Russell said to the kid with the gun in his hand.

"I know one Zombie to think so" He said after checking how many rounds he had.

"Just don't go shooting off to one little thing you see" They all get out of the truck and meet in front of the truck. Corey pulls out the list Sarah had given him.

"Sarah made a list of supplies we should get. Craig you and Shawn go for your brothers medication and Corey and I will go for the stuff on the list." Russell says to the three men.

They all start to walk towards the door but something catches Corey's eye. Something across the street. He stops to take a look while the others keep on walking.

"Wait, wait up" He says quietly.

The other three stop to look back at him.

"What's up?" Russell asks.

"Look over there" Russell and the rest of the group look across the street. "It's a sporting goods store, there might be some guns in there, if anything some hunting rifles."

"We'll head over there once we get the stuff on the list" Russell said.

"I think we should split up. It's gonna be dark soon and who knows how long we'll be in there" Corey declares.

"What do you wanna do then?" Russell asks.

Corey looks at Craig and Shawn who are standing there impatiently.

"Will you two be okay by yourselves?" Russell asks towards Shawn and Craig.

"I don't know, it's gonna be harder without you two holding our hands" Shawn says.

"Don't do anything stupid" Corey says tossing the duffel bag at Shawn.

"Turn your radios on frequency 2 and keep them with you" Russell says to Craig who is turning onto the frequency "We'll be back soon"

Russell and Corey hop back into the truck and drive off to go just a short distance down the road, leaving Shawn and Craig by themselves.

"Lets get this over with" Craig said to Shawn.

The two men walk into the pharmacy and once inside, they look the entire store over and all they see is a dark room with shelves over turned and bottles everywhere on the floor making it a difficult task to identify all the bottles.

Everything was quiet until Shawn spoke up.

"This is gonna be fun.."


	30. Chapter 30

Corey and Russell pull up to the parking lot of the sporting goods store.

"Guilford's Hunting Shop"

They both get out of the truck and walk up to the front double doors. Corey goes to open but both doors are locked.

"Doors locked"

"I don't think thats a problem" Russell says.

"Why is that?" Corey asks.

Corey looks up at Russell who is pointing to his left, he looks to where he is pointing and he see's the side display window shattered through. The two men step up onto the window display and walks into the store.

Russell has his gun drawn and they both survey the store.

Everything is a mess, everything that was once standing up is now on the ground. They walk over to the hunting section and towards the display case's where they kept the guns.

They look inside the case, where there was once glass and now empty display cases.

"Looks like someone got here before we did" Corey speaks up.

"Must have left in hurry" Russell says as he picks up a hunting rifle at the other end of the casing. Russell tosses it over at Corey.

"I guess one gun is better than nothing" Corey says catching the gun. He grabs the only box of ammo for that gun and puts them into the gun loading it up.

Putting whatever is rest into his pocket. He looks around for any more ammo especially for the gun he found in the security officers desk back at the costco.

He found only one box and it was already opened with half the ammo gun. He takes it and loads it into the pistol.

"Look around to see if theres anything useful" Russell says.

Back at the pharmacy Craig and Shawn are rummaging through the thousands of bottles on the floor. It's been nothing but trouble, taking hours just to find a couple to medications.

"Found them" Craig speaks up. In his hands are two bottles of his brothers meds.

He looked to a nearby broken shelf, and on the floor next to it is a couple more bottles. He takes them all and stashes them into his bag.

Shawn is getting the supplies from the list Sarah made and throwing them into the duffel bag.

"Alright we got what we came for, lets go"

Craig takes his bag and slings it over his shoulders, standing up on his feet.

"Yeah, you're right" Craig said softly.

The Two men start to walk towards the door to leave, the sun is starting to set as they get closer to the door. Craig looks over to his right and looks over the front counter. Behind it is shelves of perfectly stocked bottles.

"Check it out, maybe theres more of my brothers medicine back there" Craig says stopping Shawn from walking out the door.

"I think we got enough, lets go" Shawn replies.

"I know but if I get more than my brother will be set for a long time"

Shawn really doesn't wanna wait any longer.

"Alright fine, but hurry up its getting dark outside"

Craig hops over the counter and takes a looks around on the shelves and only after a minute he spots it. He picks up the bottle and scans it.

"What did I tell you" He says as he unzips his bag and stashes them in one by one.

He goes to grab another bottle when he is suddenly pulled by the arm from something on the other side. He is rammed up against the shelf causing it to shake and all the bottles to fall off and onto the ground.

He starts to scream in pain. Shawn goes to hop over the counter to come to Craig's aid. He grabs onto Craig and starts pull him back but Craig is pulled back to the shelf ramming him up against it.

He starts to do a tug of war type with whatever is on the other side.

Shawn looks over to the front door and notice a couple of Zombies staggering into the store. Craig's screaming must be attracting those close by.

Shawn pulls out his gun and points it at the rack of shelves and starts firing. The Zombie on the other side is still pulling. He points a little bit higher and fires one more time causing the creature to stop pulling on Craig's arm.

He then hears a thud.

He pulls Craig away from the Shelf and takes a look at his arm, it is destroyed by bite marks. Blood is flowing from every mark on his arm.

Craig is crying out in incredible pain.

Back at the sporting goods store Russell and Corey are scanning the store for any more useful supplies.

They both stop when they hear gunshots ring out in the air. Russell grabs the radio, bringing it to his mouth

"Shawn, Craig. Come in !" He says yelling into the radio.

There was no answer.

"Guys are you there!?" He screams into the radio once more.  
Still no answer.

"Son of a bitch" Russell runs back at the shattered window and jumps out, running into the empty parking lot. Corey grabs the bag of supplies and runs after him.

They look over at the pharmacy to see a rather large group of dead flooding into the pharmacy. Theres at least 20 on the outside and who knows how many are inside.

Russell picks up the radio and screams into it again.

"Dammit pick up the radio!" Russell looks over at Corey.

"Come on we gotta help them!" He says while running to the truck, opening up the door.

Corey runs up behind him and stops him.

"Theres too many of them" They both look over again and it is just packed. "There is no way they survived that"

"You don't know that"

"Theres gotta be 30 of them packed into that store"

"We gotta help" Russell says back.

"We go over there we're committing suicide" Corey says to Russell.

Russell looks between the pharmacy and Corey and lets out a frustrated sigh.

"We're just two guys with very little ammo, what are we gonna be able to do?" Corey says once more.

"GOD DAMMIT!" Russell shouts out.

They watch as the store is being filled up like it was the release of a new Iphone.

"We gotta go while we can" Corey lets out after watching for a moment.

Russell lets out another frustrated sigh and eventually gets into the truck. They drive out of the parking lot and onto the road, slowing down as they get close to the pharmacy. They look at the mass horde that has taken over the store, Russell puts his foot down on the gas pedal and speeds of down the road.

XXXXXX

The drive was quiet for awhile. Not one word was said until Corey realized they weren't going back to Costco.

"Where you going?" He asked.

"Charlotte" He said simply.

"Seriously. You still wanna go after what just happened?"

"That was the plan and i'm sticking to it...besides...i'm bringing somebody back alive" He said as they drove towards Charlotte which was a 2 hour drive away.


	31. Chapter 31

Sarah was on top of the roof ever since the 4 men left to go get the meds and Katie's mom.

"Looks like a storm's coming" Ross said sneaking up on her causing her to jump a little.

"Sorry dear, didn't me to startle you" Said the old man.

"It's okay" She said as she looked back out towards the roads.

"Those clouds are rolling in"

"I'm starting to get worried, If it storms it's gonna slow them down" She said.

"Don't worry he's in good hands" Ross said to her talking about Corey with a big smile on his face.

She looked at him and gave him that, is it obvious look. She went back to looking again. Ross takes out a cigarette from his pack that he just took out of his jacket.

"Would you care for one?" He said offering to her.

"No thank you, I don't smoke"

"I didn't either...Till the dead rose from their graves that is" He said lighting up his cigarette.

"My wife...Judy, She hated the fact that I smoked so much" He started to smile.

"She would replace them with those cinnamon sticks..I would yell at her so much, She's probably looking down on me right now with such a scowl look on her face"

"Sorry you lost your wife during all this" Sarah said.

"Oh no dear, she died 2 years ago to breast cancer"

"Oh sorry to hear that"

"It's probably for the best. I would hate for her to be here during all this" He said letting out a puff of smoke.

Things got silent after that.

"Come on inside dear, It's starting to rain" He said as he felt the drizzle start to come down.

They both walked back inside and the sky was now completely dark and the rain started to pour.

XXXXXX

Jay and Derek were inside playing Mortal Kombat on an xbox 360 that they set up. They put together a 72 inch screen television and put together a xbox, playstation and the wii.

Sadie and Kelsey were playing dolls with Katie as they played each other in the game.

"God damn you're whooping my ass!" Derek yelled out as he's now just pressing random buttons on the controller.

"That's it I give up" He said putting the controller down. "I say new game"

"Madden?" Jay thought up.

"You crazy. I know better than to play madden with a black guy" He said.

The group laughed as Derek got up and walked towards the games. He looked around trying to find the perfect game for them.

"How about dead rising 2...seems appropriate"

"Bring Gears. I love me some Gears" Jay replied back.

Derek game back with Gears for them to play and was about to put it into the drive when they heard a scream echoing the store.

They all stood up as Sadie embraced Katie making sure she was safe. Jay looked around.

"Did they get inside?!" Kelsey said aloud.

Stay here" Jay said as he started to walk ahead towards the scream. That's when he saw Charlie yelping out and moving around like he was having a seizure.

Sarah was there holding onto him trying to get him to calm down.

"Jay thank god come here!" She said once he saw him.

He came closer.

"Look through their stuff see if you cand any medicine"

He ran through into the tent and started ransacking their stuff and she kept trying to get him to calm down.

"Found it" He said as he found a bottle.

"Get me out 2 pills!"

He opened up the bottle and pour it all into his hand but only 1 lonely pill came out.

"Sarah there is only 1 left"

"It's gonna have to do" He hands her the pill as she gives it to Charlie who put up a fight but eventually swallowed the pill.

He start to calm down a bit after awhile but was still fidgety.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Jay asked.

"Yeah but he's gonna need the rest soon" She looked back at him as he started to lay down inside their tent.

"Hopefully they'll get back soon"

The rest of the group start to come closer to the tent when they knew it was Charlie having a breakdown.

"Everything alright?" Brandon asked.

"Yeah he just had a moment" She said quietly but aloud to them.

"We were afraid they got inside" He continued to say.

She looked back at the tent and saw him snoozing away.

"I'll keep an eye on him, If they don't come back soon it's just gonna get worse" Sarah said.

After that they all started to scatter away from his tent and back to what they were doing.

XXXXXX

Russell and Corey were driving down the road underneath the moonlight, the only thing that was giving them light.

Corey was looking at a map trying to get the directions down to the address Katie's mom had given them.

"Just get the directions to the house from main street" Russell said while driving.

"You know how to get to Charlotte?"

"Yeah, i'm from there" He replied back.

Corey gave that OH nod and went back to the map looking for main street, he finally found it and wrote down directions to get there.

They been driving for almost an hour now without any real trouble, sticking to the back roads was his plan and it worked out great.

Every so often they would find a staggering dead walking on the side of the road.

"How long you been in the military?" Corey asked trying to break the silence.

"Too long" He said keeping it short. You can tell he was still a little upset about what had happened an hour ago.

Corey knows what he's doing. Not wanting to talk so he just looks straight ahead. Only able to see the headlight shining on the road.

The rain started to fall and it started to fall hard. Russell turned on the windshield wipers and started to drive slower.

He sighed as he let go of the gas pedal a bit.

"This is gonna slow us down" He said. "Also the worst time to be running low on gas"

Corey leaned over in his seat and looked at the needle on the gas gauge and it was on damn near empty.

"Keep an eye out for a gas station" He said.

XXXXXX

Back at Costco everybody was laying down and asleep, the rain was so hard that it can be heard hitting the roof. Thunder started to roll in and that's when Katie started to get a little scared and started snuggling close to Sadie.

Brandon was fast asleep in his tent just like everybody else was. That was until he woke up from a loud thunderclap and saw that Jessica wasn't laying next to him.

"Jessica?" He said a little loud hoping she was close by.

He sat up and saw that it was pitch black in and out of his tent. The storm caused the power to go out and it was dark throughout the store.

He got up and started to walk around the store looking for his fiance.

"Jessica?" He said again.

"Everything alright?" He heard someone say as he whipped around and saw Sadie coming from out her tent.

"I can't find Jessica" He said.

"I'm sure she's around here somewhere, come on i'll help you look" She said as she put one hand on his back and they started to walk off.

"Sorry to wake you" He said to her.

"It's okay, I don't really sleep anymore these days"

"Still have those nightmares?" He asked. Remembering she told him about them back when they were in the stadium.

"...Yeah" She said sadly.

"Sorry..Can't say I know how it feels to lose somebody you love but I know it's gotta be rough"

"You start to live with it" She said trying to change the subject as they turned down an aisle.

"She's been quiet ever since she saw her family and friends die right in front of us...i'm worried she might hurt herself" He said talking about Jessica.

"We'll find her" She said reassuring him.

That's when they heard a loud thunder and heavy wind and what sounded like a door being slammed from the wind.

They both looked at each other with a strange look on their face.

"The roof!" He said as he started to run towards it with Sadie following right behind.

They both ran up the steps towards the roof as fast as they could and when they got there the door was shut. Brandon runs up and pushes it open and runs into the pouring rain.

Looking around the roof to see if Jessica is up here.

"There she is!" Sadie yells out and point in the direction .

Brandon runs over to find Jessica standing near the ledge looking down at the ground below her. While a group of the dead are growling at her.

"Jessica!" Brandon said as he got near.

She didn't turn around she just kept looking down.

Sadie stood back behind as they were all drenched standing in the rain.

"Jessica...What are you doing" He said as he slowly walked towards her.

She slowly turned around and Brandon was able to see her face. Even in the heavy rain it was noticeable that she was crying.

Brandon stepped closer and She stepped back when he did. He started to catch on at what she might be tempting to do.

"Baby..." He started saying. "Don't do it..." He started pleading with her.

"I don't wanna live like this anymore!" She cried out.

"Nobody does baby, but leaping to your death isn't that way to go"

"At Least it's my decision" She cried out again.

"What happens if you survive the fall. Those things are gonna be on you so fast and you'll just end up like one of them...is that how you wanna be?"

She looked back down at the dead that were clawing on the brick wall.

"Them tearing you apart and eating your organs is greater pain than surviving" He said as he kept trying to get her to change her mind.

"Are you so sure about that" She said back. "If I die then I get to be back with my mom and dad and my little sister again"

"What about me?.." He brought up. "Are you gonna leave me to walk this earth without you. Trying to fight for myself"

"Jump with me" She said.

Sadie just stood in the back and watched the entire thing. Not knowing if she should be there knowing it's not really her business.

"I can't do that babe...and neither should you"

"Why not?" She said as she cried out some more.

"Cause you and I both know that when I die and we see your dad up there he's gone whoop my ass for letting you give up" He said with a half smile.

"Please.." He said as he extended his hand out to her.

She looked back down at the ground and then at Brandon. She slowly raised her arm out and her fingers were not intertwined with Brandon's.

He quickly pulled her in and gave her a big hug as they stood in the heavy rain and she cried into his chest as Sadie still continued to stay a distances away with a few tears streaming down her face.


	32. Chapter 32

Russell and Corey were still in the middle of the road as the truck started to give up. It now had it's last drip of gasoline and was now coming to a stop.

"Guess that's it" Russell said as the truck came to a complete stop.

"There's nothing but tree's" Corey said looking out the window through the heavy rain.

"Well, lets get walking" Russell says.

Corey sighed. He didn't really feel like walking in the heavy rain in the middle of the night. But he knew he had no other choice.

They couldn't just sit inside of a truck in the middle of the road. They would be trapped before they knew it if the dead decided to show up.

The 2 men grabbed their guns and got out of the truck. Russell turned on the light that was attached to his gun.

It wasn't a lot but it's all they had and it's what they worked with. They both had their guns raised ready for anything if it decided to pop out from one of these tree's.

They walked down the road trying to find the nearest gas station but all the were going through were residential area's.

And that's when they heard a loud screech. They both tried to look around to see if they found anything but it was too hard to see with the rain pouring down as hard as it was.

That's when Russell saw something staggering towards them at a fast pace. Instead of shooting it he took the end of his gun and smashed it across the dead man's face, causing it to collapse to the ground.

He looked at the creature stir on the floor as he took his weapon one more time and finished the job.

"We need to get outta here, that screech he made is just gonna attract more" And with that being said they started to hear more.

"Shit" Russell said as the two men looked around. They can be seen from a distance coming in all directions.

"Lets go" He said as they both got off the road and started running between to houses cutting into their yard.

They were spotted by the dead, who knows how many there was. With all the rain coming down it was hard to get an exact number, but it was enough for them to run away.

Corey turned back around and took a few shots only hitting them in the chest. Then turned back and caught up with Russell. They both hopped over a fence into someones yard.

As soon as they got back on their feet the other end of the wooden fence was being banged and clawed at by the creatures.

"Over here" Russell said as they started back up again.

"Russell, Russell stop" Corey called out.

Russell turned and saw Corey standing next to an RV.

The door was already wide open so Corey had his gun pointed inside waiting for anything to pop out. They both ran inside and slammed the door shut.

They hid inside so they could catch their breath and that's when they heard something staggering outside. Corey poked his head up and saw the 6 dead creatures wandering around.

They became absolutely silent inside as they tried not to attract attention.

The dead crowd came roaming through but missed the RV completely. Corey peeked through the window again and saw that they had walked off into the street and waited till they were absolutely gone.

"Alright they're gone" He said as he came back to the ground where he saw Russell panting from exhaustion.

He then got up and walked towards the front of the RV.

"What are you doing?" Corey asked.

"Checking for keys" He said back to the man.

"You crazy. RV this nice they aren't gonna just keep the keys insid-"

Russell interrupted him as he started to jiggle a set of keys back in his direction.

"Door was wide open and there are suitcase on the couch. Also there is blood on the inside door. Someone was trying to make a run for it but didn't make it" He explained.

Russell got into the drivers seat and put the key in the ignition.

"We better hope this works, because if this thing doesn't start but makes noise it's gonna bring those fuckers right back here" He said as he was about to turn the key.

He turned the key and thank god the engine roared to life. He smiled and so did Corey.

"Full tank also" Russell said with his smile getting brighter.

He put the RV into reverse and pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. Driving in the opposite direction that the group went in.

Corey started to scan the back of the Rv looking for anything useful. He open up the fridge and found a 6 pack of beer. He grabbed 2 and popped them open and handed one to Russell as he was still driving.

"Here, Cause for a celebration" He said handing it to him.

"This is a trick isn't it, You're a cop you gonna arrest me?" He said as he took the beer.

Corey just laughed a bit and sat down in the passenger seat.

"Like I said before...I WAS a cop" He said as he took a swig of the warm beer. "How are we gonna tell Craig's brother that he's dead...better yet we don't even have his medicine" He asked.

"Guess we'll find out when we get back" Russell said." Don't forget about Shawn"

"Yeah...I didn't" He said.

"What's your beef with him?" Russell asked.

"Just an arrogant kid that's all"

"Well that arrogant kid did save mine and everybody elses life back on that bus, don't forget that" He said back to the man in the passenger seat.

"Yeah you're right" The former cop said. "Wonder what everyones reaction is going to be"

"Like I said before, only way to find out is when we get back, but right now lets try to get this woman and bring her back with her little girl" He said as they drove down the road towards Charlotte as the rain started to finally let up.

XXXXXXXXX

Everyone back at Costco is setting up some candles since the power is out. They don't expect it to be coming back on anymore after that so they gather all flashlights, candles anything they can use to make light during the night time.

Brandon finally got Jessica to come in. She fell fast asleep after he got her dried off. She was laying down in their tent wrapped in a blanket as he was brushing her hair.

Sadie was with Katie who was fast asleep during the storm only every now and then she would scoot closer to Sadie.

Derek was out like a light during the whole storm as well.

Sarah was close by Charlie just in case he was going to have another outburst but ever since his last one he's been calm.

Rodney was also another one who was fast asleep holding onto a bottle of scotch like it was a teddy bear.

Kelsey and Jay were snuggled up in their tent as well, and by the looks of it they used the storm as background noise for romance.

And then there was Ross, who was sitting in his office leaning back in his chair holding a framed photo of his wife and himself on a cruise. They were both smiling. As he was at the moment.

He put his cigarette out in his ashtray as he set the photo back down on his desk as he leaned back and closed his eyes...

XXXXXXX

Russell and Corey were driving down a neighborhood with the big RV, trying their best not to attract any attention but if was a tough job with such a large vehicle come barreling through the neighborhood. It's something that's kinda hard to miss.

"There it is" Corey said pointing towards a house.

"You sure?" Russell said as he slowed down the RV.

"Yeah 301, right there on the mailbox" He said reassuring.

Russell stopped the RV in the middle of the road and turned off the ignition. He got up from his seat and started looking through all the windows.

"Looks clear" Russell said as he looked through the dark neighborhood. "You ready to do this?" He asked Corey.

Corey nodded his head as he checked how much ammo he's got as did Russell. They 2 men walked towards the door and stepped outside with both of them having their weapons drawn.

They ninja'd across the street and into the yard of the house Melissa was hiding up in. Scanning it the entire way there.

Russell was first to the front door and motioned for Corey who was looking out for any roamers.

"Look" Russell said in a whisper.

Corey looked back and and noticed the front door was wide open. He sighed as they knew this wasn't going to end well.

They stepped inside the old house, walking carefully so they wouldn't make too much noise, in case there was any inside.

Russell stopped in the middle of the hallway when he noticed something standing at the end of it. Standing there was a dead man. It wasn't scratching at the door or clawing at it or anything.

It was just standing there swaying back and forth. Corey raised his gun and that's when Russell put his hand out and lowered his gun.

Russell slowly started to step forward as he pulled out his knife from his belt. The creature never realized he was there until the moment Russell got close enough to stick the knife straight through it's skull.

Even catching it's body so it wouldn't make a thud noise when it fell to the ground. Russell looked back at Corey and gave him the coast is clear signal.

They scanned the house and found it empty.

"Must have either ran off or joined their herd" Russell said aloud. Until they both heard a noise coming from above them.

Corey was standing right underneath the drawstring that grabs the attic ladder. The two men look at eachother and smile.

"Good move Melissa" Corey said as he was happy she ran from them before they got to her.

He grabbed the string and pulled down the ladder as Russell ran up it as quickly as he could, followed by Corey. They scanned the attic looking for the woman when they saw something cowering in the corner.

"Melissa?" Russell said as he came over to her.

But when the two men got closer what they saw upsetted them both very much. They saw an older blonde woman on the ground hissing at them with a rather large bite mark on her arm.

They were too late...

They both had the same disappointed look on their faces. Russell steps forward clenching his knife as he bent down to the now flesh hungry monster and stuck her head with it.

He stood back up as Corey was looking at the dead- dead corpse lying on the ground.

"Guess this entire mission was a complete fail" Russell said aloud as he walked back to the attic ladder.

"Come on, lets go before we die also" And with that Russell descended down the ladder and back onto the main floor.


	33. Chapter 33

The drive back to Costco and it was silent the entire drive. It was now way early in the morning as they finally arrived back.

They looked at the building and it was completely dark, and it had the erie abandon ghost mansion thing going on with it.

As they drove into the parking lot, Russell beeps the horn to let them know they are back.

Causing everyone to get up when they heard the horn beeping, the group ran in the dark store towards the roof to see where it was coming from.

Once they got on top of the roof and looked out into the parking lot they saw a RV circling the building.

"Who is that?" Jay asked.

Sarah grabs the binoculars and is looking to see who is inside the RV and she saw Corey and Russell in the front seat.

"It's them. they're back" She said as she started to run back down stairs with Ross in pursuit. Since of course he's the one that knows how to operate the gate.

Sadie smiles as she hopes to see Katie and her mom reunite. She grabs onto her hand tight and they follow everyone back downstairs to see the returning men and her mother.

Russell drives around back to the loading dock and Ross opens up the gate without any trouble at all. Not a single dead was around.

They drive in and are greeted by Ross and Sarah and the rest of the gang.

Sarah watches as the RV drives inside and Ross closes the gate behind them.

Corey and Russell step outside of the RV as they parke it.

Russell gets out of the RV first and is clearly upset.

"Where's Shawn and Craig?" Sarah asks Russell as she notices they are the only 2 to walk out of the RV, but he just keeps on walking not even acknowledging the women in front of her.

"What happened?" She asks Corey as he walks by.

All he does is shrug his shoulders.

"They're dead" He said simply. Ross and Sarah stare at each other as Corey walks off slinging the bag over his shoulders.

Everyone else in the group start to notice that it was just them two.

"Where's everyone else" Sadie asked Sarah.

"He says they're gone...dead" She said sadly as she watched the 2 men walk away.

Sadie looks at the 2 men and then down at Katie, She is clearly upset her mother is not back with them, as well as Shawn and Craig...Especially Shawn..

XXXXXXXX

Corey just came back from their failed task and left the loading dock as everyone watched them walk off.

He came to his tent and took the pistol out from his back waist and set it on a makeshift night stand next to his bed. Next he took the rifle in his hand and laid it between the mattress and nightstand and then sat on his bed.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he let out a huge sigh. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his samsung galaxy and turned it on. Once it turned on the light from his screen lit up the entire tent. He started flipping through pictures of his little girl Holly and his ex wife.

"Knock, Knock" He looked up and saw Sarah standing in the entranceway with a candle.

"Hey.." He said softly.

"Mind if I sit?" She asked.

He didn't reply instead he just scooted over a little bit to make room for her. She sat down next him.

"Any luck making calls?" She asked when he saw his cell phone in his hands.

"Phone stopped working a long time ago. I just save the battery every now and then so I can look at the pictures"

"She's pretty...both of them" She said looking over at his phone as she took notice of his daughter and also wife.

"Thanks" He said in a slight whisper. "I don't even know if they are still alive or not"

"Are they not in town?" She asked.

"No, She moved back up to New York when we divorced" He started to get sadder. "I was on the phone with them...Heard everything"

"I thought you said you weren't sure if they were alive or not?"

"I lost contact with them. last thing I heard was them both screaming" He started to wipe a tear away "They were hiding in the closet from one of those dead fucks that got in the house"

Sarah placed a hand on his shoulder as a few more tears fell.

"It's okay, better than to keep running for the rest of their lives" He said once more.

He then turns off his phone and places it back into his pocket.

"Should have seen it out there" He started back up. "My stupid self said to split up"

"They went into the pharmacy while Russell and I found a hunting store next door...next thing we know we heard gunshots..."

"...Then we saw 20..hell maybe 30 of them piling up inside the store"

"We wanted to help so bad but there was no way we could have helped them" He said trying to explain Craig and Shawn's death.

"It's okay, we all gotta make sacrifices now" She told him trying to comfort him.

"Then by the time we got to Charlotte it was too late" He said again, this time shaking his head. "She was hiding up in attic..But she had already turned"

Sarah embraced him into a big hug. He hugged back, didn't cry. Just hugged.

After a while Sarah let go.

"I guess I should break the news to Charlie" She said.

"I'll do it if you want me to" He said trying to volunteer.

"Nah it's okay" She looked him over one last time and said "You gonna be okay?"

"I'll survive" He said with a grin.

With that she walked out of his tent and down to Charlie and Craigs tent.

XXXXXX

Sarah is standing a good distance away from Charlie and Craig's tent, watching Charlie sitting there by himself... all alone.

After tough consideration she finally decides to step forward. She stands at the entrance of their tent. Charlie is sitting on his cot looking down at the floor, rocking back and forth.

"Hey Charlie" Sarah says as she enters their tent.

She looks around and notices 2 beds. One for him and the other for Craig. She looks back at Charlie and gets down at his level.

"There's something I need to tell you Charlie" She said as she swallowed a big gulp.

"Do you know where my brother is?" He said quietly and kinda with a slight stutter.

She was having a tough time trying to find the right words to use.

"Your brother went to go get some things" She started to say. "And well...He didn't make it Charlie"

He looked at her with a bewildered look.

"He's gone"

"No" He said in a whisper.

"I'm sorry..."

He started to sob, the kinda crying where the drool and snot came flying out. He continues to cry louder and louder.

Sarah decides to stick around and keep him calm.

XXXXXXX

Later that morning around 10ish

Corey is sitting at one of the table at the food court, just sitting, not eating, not drinking, just sitting there by himself thinking. That was until Sarah showed up and plopped down into the empty seat across from him and she is visibly upset.

"How did it go?" Corey asks.

"Awful" She begins to fiddle with her fingers. "You know at the hospital we used to deliver bad news all the time , but this, this was the hardest thing I ever had to do" She states.

"I'm sorry" Corey tells her.

"How's Russell taking it?"

"He just feels bad he wasn't able to help" Corey says.

"There was nothing you guys could do, you were outnumbered"

"Thats what I keep trying to tell him" He says as Sarah puts a hand over his and brushes her thumb over his.

"He'll come around" She said sweetly.

XXXXXXX

There is a group sitting inside Jay and Kelsey's tent discussing the situation that happened.

Everyone seems saddened especially Sadie.

"I feel sorry for Charlie, poor guy has nobody anymore" Kelsey says to the rest of the group.

"..And Shawn has nobody to feel sorry for him" Jay said putting something in for Shawn not leaving him out.

"I think Corey is glad to see him go" Derek said also putting in his two cents. "Those two had a thing for each other, did you see the way they were with each other when they played basketball that night?" He asked the group.

"I don't think he hated him that much" This time it was Sadie. "I know the guy was an quiet and kinda rude at times, but he didn't deserve that"

"Hell of a ball player" Jay says with a laugh.

"We should have some kind of memorial for them" Jessica said as she is cuddled up with her boyfriend Brandon. Everyone looked at her, it was very rare to hear anything come from her. In the end they all thought it was a good idea and agreed with here.

XXXXX

Russell is sitting on the outside of his tent, he is polishing his gun trying anything to keep his mind from what had happened.

"How you holding up?" Corey says popping up in front of him.

"Like shit" Was the only response from Russell.

"You gotta let it go" Corey says to the man. "I know it sucks they died, but we would have too"

"You don't understand"

"Don't understand? We both seen a lot of shit since all this started. I don't even know if my kid and Ex- wife are alive!" Corey shouts at the man. "Every second of not knowing is tearing me apart inside" The last part he said quieter.

"But I was there! I could have done something!" Russell shouts back.

"You gotta let it go"

"I can't let it go. I broke the number one rule: never abandon a fellow man!"

"It's not fucking Iraq!. The world is fucked up, it's everyman for himself!"

"Your glad we didn't go back, you wanted Shawn to die" Russell spits out.

"Wow, thats cold" Corey said back to him.

"You might as well confess it, the two of you have been at each others throat ever since we were on the bus. You wanted to leave him there to die" Russell kept it going.

"You know what, youre right, I did not like the kid, but I'm not a murderer!"

Sarah hears the commotion between the two and see's both men in each other's face. She steps in between them.

"Is everything alright here?" Sarah asks the two men as they continue to stare each other down.

"I know everyones tension is high right now, but we cannot blame one another" She looks at both men again. "People are gonna die, but it's something we gotta learn to live with"

The two start to calm down just a bit and Sarah continues talking.

"The others decided to have a memorial tomorrow morning up on the roof. I think you guys should be there"

"...Yeah I would like to be there for that" Russell speaks up.

"Yeah, me too" Also says Corey.

"Good, now you two shake hands and lets get on with whatevers left our lives."

The two men extend their hands and both shake it making up.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, you're not a murderer" Russell apologizes.

"It's alright you were venting" They both end their shake.

"Good boys" Sarah said with a smile on her face.


	34. Chapter 34

The night was rough on everyone, their nerves stretched to the max. Not sure if anyone got any sleep after what had happened when only half the group came back to get supplies. But everyones mind was more on the deaths of Craig and Shawn.

The following morning at 9:00 A.M everyone was walking up the metal stairs heading towards the roof to have a memorial service for the two deaths of their fellow survivors, Craig and Shawn.

Derek is walking side by side with Russell, walking out the door stepping outside on the roof. He looks up at the soldier standing next to him with his gun hanging from his shoulder.

"I was gonna ask if your were gonna do...like a gun salute or something.." He pauses for a second and then looks back up at him again. "Then I thought you might need those bullets so...never mind" Derek runs off and joins the group.

Russell watches as he heads off. A smirk appears on his face. Russell is the last man to join the group of the other survivors.

Everyone is standing in a circle. Some of the girls have flowers that they had set in the middle.  
Everyone is silent, not sure where to start. Every man, woman and child are standing there with their heads down staring at the ground.

Corey looks at everyone and decides he should begin, so he jumps in.

"I'm not sure how to start these things" He said looking at everyone in the eye. Still at a loss for words. "As you all know we lost two of our own yesterday" He runs a hand over his rugged face thinking of how to continue on.

"I never really got the chance to talk with Craig. But based on his actions the other day I can honestly say that he is a brave man...and will do anything for his family" He said looking at Craig's younger brother Charlie who is staring at the ground being comforted by Sarah. "...Even risking his own life"

"...Shawn..." He started but certainly didn't know how to finish it. "...Well me and him never really did see eye to eye." He wanted to finish it he really did, but he had just given up.

"Maybe I'm not the one that should be honoring Shawn...Does anyone else wanna say something?"

He looks around at the group. Everyone else also looks around at each everybody else. Corey can tell from everyones expression on their face that nobody else knows what to say.

"Maybe we should just end it here...Amen" Corey said calling quits.  
Everyone starts to spread out making way towards the door. The girls place a couple of flowers down and follow in suit.

"I have something I would like to say!" Everyone was standing right in front of the door, They all stop and turn around looking in the direction they heard the voice come from.

Standing there on the edge next to the ladder is Shawn. His once white T-Shirt is now covered in dried blood. His long wavy brown hair that is hanging in front of his face also has dried blood matted into his hair.

"Shawn?" Corey said with his jaw dropping to the ground.

"What? Surprised to see me?" Shawn said giving him a glare. He notices that all eyes are on him so he decides to address his audience. "Wow. Already theirs a funeral for me"

"We thought you were dead" Corey says to the young man standing in front of him.

"Dead?...Yeah well I thought so too when I saw you two driving off leaving me there alone." He then hops off the ledge and continues on. "...Somehow I managed to survive" He said through his teeth.

"You didn't answer the radio" Russell pipes in.

"I'm sorry I didn't take a 5 second break from 40 flesh eating creatures that were attacking me to answer your phone call" He said trying to hold back his anger the best he could.

"Were you bitten?" Sarah asks.

"No. I was not" Shawn says directly.

"Then whose blood is that?" Sarah asked looking at his blood covered shirt.."Wheres Craig?"

Shawn looks down at his blood drenched shirt and then back at Sarah. She covers her mouth with her hands, she now understand that the blood on his shirt once belonged to Craig. Kelsey buries her face into Jays chest.

Sadie does the same with Katie, directing her face away from Shawn, and Sadie looks down at the ground.

I'm sorry we left you" Russell says sincerely.

"Sorry?" Shawn says grinding his teeth. He then whips out his pistol and points it at Russell and Corey switching back and forth between the two.

Everyone takes a step back as they are horrified.

"I should shoot you both right here right now!" He says shouting out at the two men. "But since I only have one bullet left in my gun. I'm torn on deciding who I should put down" He said.

Everyone stares at him, scared at what he might do. There he is gripping onto his gun ready to pull the trigger and then...

"I'm gonna go clean up" He says as he lowers his gun. He begins to walk off but stops suddenly with his back facing the group he says...

"Oh and here are the kids meds" He says dropping the bag on the ground not even looking back as he walks off and back inside, leaving everyone completely stunned...


End file.
